The Most Dangerous Man In Konoha
by tampoposensei
Summary: Kakashi X Iruka. Iruka has been attacked and beaten. Kakashi is wrongly suspected, or is there more to it?. So who is the most dangerous man in Konoha? Action, adventure, romance, yaoi. Complete. Minor rewrite. Repost.
1. Chapter 1

Hatake Kakashi had been staring at the albino ratsnake for hours, marveling at its perfect camouflage, in a bright streak of sunlight on the silver grey bark of the tree. It had to have found the only place in the forest where such a conspicuous animal could hide. How? How did it know? His team was thrashing around nearby. Obviously the strategy of hiding in plain sight was an effective one. The kids had been searching for the animal, the beloved pet of a local noble's daughter, all day.

A glance at the sky told him it was mid afternoon, he'd let them keep looking for another hour, two at the most, he wanted to go home.

Suddenly Naruto's voice bellowed out of the undergrowth. "Shit Kakashi-sensei, there's no snakes anywhere here. Must be something in these woods eating them. So if that kid's aodaisho's around here it already got eaten, so let's go ok. I'm hungry."

Kakashi was about to answer, telling them to look underneath the underneath, when he stiffened imperceptibly. Two powerful shinobi were approaching, very fast. His three curious subordinates crawled out of the bushes, scratched and scuffed, just as the ANBU stopped in front of him. Nearby the snake pressed its white body closer to the tree, something in the ANBU's intent made Kakashi want to do the same.

"Hatake-san," a muffled voice said through a porcelain mask, "Hokage-sama asked if you would come with us?"

It wasn't a question.

"Of course," he said casually, then picked up the snake and tossed it to Naruto. "Later." He added with a cheerful wave.

Tusanade was waiting for him in her office. She looked up as he entered, and the ANBU took their places close on either side of him, too close.

There was a long pause while the woman watched him, as if waiting for a reaction.

"Hatake Kakashi," she said eventually. "Were you aware that Umino Iruka was brutally attacked in his apartment this morning?"

A single white eyebrow shot up as Kakashi, heart beating wildly, struggled to keep his outward calm. "How is he? Who…?"

Tsunade spoke slowly and deliberately, not missing a single twitch. "He's badly bruised and cut but none of his injuries are life threatening." She paused again, appraising the effect of her words. "However he hasn't been able to tell us who attacked him. It seems his memory was… altered. By a sharigan user."

Kakashi's felt his hands curl into fists. "Uchiha Itachi."

The youthful face hardened, giving a hint of the woman's true age. "That was our first thought, but we have very reliable information that he's a long way from Fire Country right now."

Not Itachi? "Then who? Sasuke would never do… and he couldn't. He hasn't fully activated the sharigan yet." Suddenly his heart skipped a beat as the copy nin realised exactly why _he_ was there.

Tsunade fidgeted with the few objects on her desk, two pens, a hospital report and a teacup. Arranging them in different symetrical patterns, as if finding the perfect order would end the disorder closing in on her village.

She tried to keep her gaze on the man in front of her, and failed as her eyes darted away at the last moment. "You've kept your, er, relationship with Iruka-sensei very quiet, haven't you Hatake?"

Kakashi's one visible eye narrowed and darkened with fury. He took a deep breath in an attempt to keep the snarl out of his voice. "I can assure you Hakage-sama, that being loved by Umino Iruka is _not_ something that I'm ashamed of."

Tsunade's perfect doll-like face tinged with pink and her voice lowered to a harsh whisper. "Well I'm sure I don't have to tell you that a domestic partner is always the prime suspect in this kind of situation."

She forced her eyes back to his face, sounding cold and official again. "In any case I must insist that you don't leave the village, and that you don't have any contact with the…er, the victim."

Kakashe clenched his teeth under his mask and took a step towards the door. Now there was danger as well as rage in his eye. "Hokage-sama, I've never asked for any favours but please don't force me to disobey you, and unless you are ready to kill me now, do _not_ try to keep me away from him."

Tsunade hesitated, quickly arranged everything in a neat line across the centre of her desk then nodded to the ANBU. They silently stood down and let him pass.

Kakashi seethed as he raced across the rooftops towards the hospital, without giving a thought to his graceful chakra powered leaps. There was room for only one thing in his mind, Iruka was hurt, his Iruka. Of course he'd kept the relationship quiet. Fuck! It's not as if he had any choice. He was Sharigan Kakashi dammit, he was a dangerous man and he had enemies, lots of them. Enemies who wouldn't hesitate to use anything and anyone to get to him. He wasn't going to risk Iruka's life every time the teacher left the village just so that… so that what? How dare they think that? Since when did he care what anyone thought about him anyway?

At the hospital he burst through an open upper window, then raced to the ICU roughly shoving aside anyone too slow to get out of his way. He found Iruka in a room he'd occupied himself, less than six months before, in a drugged sleep so deep that he looked as if he'd never wake. Kakashi gently took his hand, taking care not to disturb the IV line running into his arm, then uncovered the sharigan eye and looked him over. There was a slight concussion and his face was badly bruised, but his jaw wasn't broken at least. Casting the eye lower he saw six broken ribs. One of them must have punctured a lung, he could see the bright chakra glow of the damaged area, thankfully it had already been strengthened and reinflated. His left arm was broken in two places and his hands were slashed to ribbons. So he'd tried to defend himself against a blade, unarmed.

Then Kakashi saw the blood clotted around his intestines, slowly fed by a leak in his spleen. Goddam incompetent idiots!

He sped into the corridor and grabbed the closest nurse, a blond girl barely out of her mid teens. Suppressing the urge to scream in her face, he spoke in a low deliberate voice that was somehow even more terrifying.

"Get a medic in here now, he's still bleeding!"

The girl's pale skin turned white. "But… but Hokage-sama treated him herself. She said that…"

Kakashi took a deep breath radiating menace, the girl almost fainted with fear. "Well the stupid bitch screwed up. He's still bleeding, inside, I can see it!" He pointed to the still uncovered sharigan.

The nurse squawked and ran for her life, glancing behind just once.

Kakashi went back to sit at Iruka's side. He checked over the rest of the teacher's limp body. There were more severe bruises, but nothing worse. As he adjusted his headband back to its usual place he noticed that its cloth lining was already soaked with tears. He'd never been able to control Obito's eye the way he could his own. The damn crybaby.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He was still sitting there when Tsunade came in with the medical team. They stared at each other across the room with mutual scorn. Kakashi held his breath as she strode over to the bed then stood and pulled the chair aside to allow her better access. She pulled back the sheet and put her hands on Iruka's abdomen, under the hospital gown.

"He's right, there's a lot of blood there. I can't pinpoint the damage well enough to use chakra, we'll have to operate."

Kakashi was in the hospital cafeteria pretending to drink tea when Ibiki found him. The few medics and other hospital workers who were still around were clustered over in the far corner. No one wanted to be closer than necessary to the angry and distraught copy-nin.

"So he's still in surgery." The big man said, sitting opposite him at the plastic table and taking a sip from his own teacup.

Kakashi looked into the stern scarred face without flinching. There weren't many in Konoha who could do that. "Did Tsnusade send you here to interrogate me?"

Ibiki snorted and looked around at the grey cinderblock walls. He let the silence hang in the air until it was almost a third presence at the table.

"You know last time I was here I was with Iruka and you were the one lying up there unconscious." He chuckled in a voice that lacked even the slightest hint of amusement. "Show's just how desperate he was if he would sit and talk to me."

Kakashi relaxed a little. "Yeah, I never did thank you for being there for him. There's only you and a handful of others that know about us. People we can trust and who can keep their mouths shut."

Ibiki's intent intensified and darkened. "Still don't remember how you got home that time?"

So it was an interrogation, but maybe not an official one. Kakashi knew that Ibiki was just as fond of the teacher as everyone else in the village. "No, nor getting hit on the head." He felt through his silver hair for the scar on his scalp. "The last thing that's clear is putting a blade through the second guy's gut. Then I woke up in here with a headache."

"But you still killed the three other ninjas and got back to Konoha before you collapsed."

It was Kakashi's turn to snort. "Yeah, the amazing Sharigan Kakashi. Kills even when unconscious."

There was a long still moment of silence.

Eventually he looked up and met the other's stony gaze with one that was just as steady, but softer, almost pleading. "Are you suggesting that _I_ could have hurt Iruka, without knowing?

The interrogator let out a long sigh and blinked once, without unlocking his eyes from the other man's.

"Look it doesn't make sense to me either, but I saw him Kakashi, the way his eyes were twitching. It was definitely a sharigan attack. I'm old enough to remember when anyone who ran foul of an Uchiha ended up in this place for a few days. With eyes just like his."

A presence in the doorway made them turn to where the nurse Kakashi had spoken to earlier was standing. Her terrified eyes flicked from one dangerous man to the other.

"Sensei-san is awake now, I was sent to…to…" Then with a squeal of fear she turned and fled.

Ibiki leaned back in his chair and drained his teacup. Kakashi stood to leave. He hesitated, then looked down at the floor, his guts twisting and knotting in an agony of indecision.

"I… er. Ibiki, will you come with me?" His voice cracked. "I… I don't want… that is I'm not sure I should be alone with him."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They found the teacher propped up in his hospital bed in a stark little room near the surgical unit. His face was bandaged and smudged with bruises, but his dark eyes were as lively and alert as ever. He startled as Kakashi entered and sat at the foot of the bed facing him.

"Er… Shinobi-san? It's good of you to visit me, do I teach one of your children?" He blushed a little, in a way that made Kakashi's breath catch painfully. "I'm sorry but my memory is still a bit, well a bit… confused."

Iruka's eyes swept over to Ibiki as he followed a few seconds behind. It was obvious that he recognised him at once, because that recognition brought the small tremble of fear that the torture expert almost always provoked.

"Morino-san, is this part of the investigation?"

Ibiki sat down in the chair by the bed and laid his hand on the teacher's, in a hopelessly futile attempt at reassuring him.

He smiled, but on his scarred face it was an equally ineffective gesture of friendliness. "No. We just came to see how you are, but I _would_ quite like to ask a few questions if you feel up to it."

Iruka was still painfully agitated, but his eyes had been drawn like magnets to the silver-haired man sitting on the end of his bed. Ibiki acknowledged him with a sweep of his hand. "Iruka-sensei, surely you know Hatake Kakashi, he saved your life you know. His sharigan eye saw the internal bleeding."

This time Iruka blushed bright red behind the bandages and he lowered his eyes shyly.

"Thank you Hatake-sama. I'm honoured by your concern. Of course I've heard of you, who hasn't? And I must have seen you in the mission room but my memory..."

Kakashi froze inside. He waved and smiled cheerfully under his mask. "Well I'm glad to see that you're feeling better."

The two jounins exchanged a glance. Ibiki broke it by pulling his eyes away abruptly, but Kakashi had already caught the hint of an unfamiliar emotion in them. Guilt? Regret?

The interrogator turned his attention back to the injured man in the bed. "Do you have any idea who would attack you?"

Iruka shook his head. His hair was tied in its usual ponytail above the bandages. The way it bounced at the movement made Kakashi's chest tighten. He looked away and fixed his eye on the heart monitor on the far side of the bed, watching the little green blob zigzag up and down, in time with the beeps counting those precious heartbeats.

"I've been lying here trying to work that out. Someone wanted to frighten me, or punish me, but I can't think of anyone who would want to do either."

Ibiki looked at him without a trace of emotion. "They called me in at once and it looked to me as if you were left for dead."

The teacher shook his head again. "I was attacked with some kind of knife but I wasn't stabbed. I could easily have been killed once I was unconscious if that's what they intended."

His questioner's eyes narrowed. "You saw the blade?"

"No, I don't remember anything at all, but my hands are all cut and a katana would have done more damage, probably cut off my fingers. It's unlucky that I had just got out of the shower so I was undressed and unarmed. Almost as if they knew exactly when to attack."

The ache in Kakashi's chest deepened at the image of Iruka lying naked and bloody on his bathroom floor. No one had mentioned that!"

"And you were alone?"

"Of course. It was early in the morning." The teacher reddened again and lowered his voice to a whisper. "And there's no one who would have stayed overnight."

Suddenly Kakashi was desperate to leave. "We should let you rest now." He said brightly past the tightness in his throat. "I'll came back to see you soon."

Iruka blushed deeper than ever and the way his bandages lifted indicated a broad smile underneath as he nodded forward in a small but earnest attempt at a bow. "Thank you Hatake-sama, I'd like that." His eyelashes lowered as he broke eye contact. "I'd like it a lot."

Once they were outside the room Ibiki grinned at Kakashi frighteningly.

"Shit Hataki, why doesn't anyone ever react to me that way. Maybe I should cover up my face in a mask? Couldn't hurt eh?"

Kakashi slumped forward, hands in his pockets. "He doesn't know me. He doesn't remember me, us, at all."

"No but he sure as hell wants to. That's if you still do."

The copy nin gave him a dark glare. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

Ibiki raised his hands and smiled apologetically. "Hey don't get me wrong. But isn't this the kind of thing that you were always afraid might happen. Now like you said he doesn't even know you. If you really want to protect him all you have to do is walk away."


	2. Chapter 2

Three leaf shinobi were patrolling the forest five miles out from the main gate. It was standard duty and normally the kind that was considered a blessed relief from the dull routine of training gennins and the intense danger of A class missions. But since the incidents at the chuunin exam, no one took even patrol duty lightly.

Adding to their unease was the fact that Mitarashi Anko had been substituted into the group with Shiranui Genma and Nara Shikaku, instead of Hatake Kakashi, at the last minute. The three men had worked this kind of patrol dozens of times together and knew each other's moves without thinking. The woman, on the other hand, was a powerful konoichi but she generally seemed reluctant to leave the village. Preferring to fulfill her jounin obligations in other ways like gate duty.

None of them knew why Kakashi had been pulled from the patrol. No one believed the story that he'd been given leave because of the attack on his friend, the academy teacher. Not even Genma, who knew that the teacher was much more than a friend. A shinobi was expected to keep up with his obligations to the village no matter what, and nothing short of the death of a close relative would excuse simple patrol duty. There was also the uncomfortable rumour that he had been seen with the torture expert Morino Ibiki several times the previous day. That was never considered a healthy sign.

But so far the patrol had been uneventful. The forest was almost ridiculously peaceful, with its great trees toweringly indifferently over all other lesser life forms, human and beast alike. Breezes stirred the branches overhead making patterns of light and shade that skittered on the forest floor and the Leaf ninjas automatically shifted the rhythm of their movements to match them, remaining invisible to all but the best-trained eyes.

Perhaps following some deep instinct, or more likely because Hatake Kakashe was in their thoughts, they tracked several miles further south than they normally would. Eventually finding themselves in the part of the forest where that same Hatake Kakashi had been ambushed by five unknown ninjas almost exactly six months before. The trees thinned out here around a rocky outcrop with an old salt mine. It was a treacherous area with deep hidden caverns and sinkholes where underground streams had eaten away the salt deposits in past millennia.

Suddenly Anko stopped. She touched the position of the curse mark on her neck as if it itched and signaled for the others to disappear. From his perch high in a tree Genma saw two ninjas, each carrying a large cloth bag. Their faces were almost completely covered and they had no identifying village marks. They seemed to be running straight towards the old mine entrance.

Anko was in front of them in a flash. She knocked one out cold with a kick to the head and slashed at the other with her sword, leaving a deep gash on his arm and spraying an arc of crimson into the air. Leaping backwards she landed on a rugged boulder, keeping her adversary fixed in her gaze as she licked at the blood on her blade and grinned. God but she could be a bloodthirsty bitch.

The unidentified ninja dodged to narrowly avoid a second attack but the tip of her sword caught his bag, ripping it open and spilling dozens of snakes onto the ground. The konoichi froze momentarily as the forest floor writhed around her feet and in that second a silvery thread streaked out of the trees and tightened around her throat. Spinning around she slashed at it but instantly a second chord wrapped around her sword hand. Genma leapt to her defense, scanning the thread for a weak point where he could cut. But before he could make his move a tendril was around his own wrist. He pulled at it, ready to switch his sword to the other hand when all the threads suddenly relaxed.

"I have him." He heard the Nara-san call from the shadows.

Genma sprang to Anko's side and checked for the pulse in her neck as he loosened the metallic chord. Just in time, her eyes were bulging hideously and he could see that her tongue was purple and swollen. He supported her as she gasped, gulping in air, while he unwound the rest of the threads. Suddenly he was knocked back by an earsplitting blast and the force of the woman's body crashing into him. Fortunately even her slight form had been enough to screen him from the worst of the sonic attack, so he lifted her onto his back and dived for cover. Just as the threads twitched back into life. Two secured themselves around the throats of the men on the ground, while the other reached for the second bag. Then they withdrew, leaving the men still and lifeless and taking the bag with them.

Nara Shikaku staggered into the sunlight.

"Gone. Another minute and I'd have had both of them," he said as he plopped down and put his head between his knees.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

As arranged Kakashi met Ibiki outside Iruka's apartment. There was absolutely nowhere in the world he wanted to be less. He directed some of his displeasure at the unseen ANBU who had followed him, scowling in their direction before greeting the interrogation expert with a cold, masked, smile.

"I can't believe you're still involved in this, an attack on a teacher's small potatoes isn't it?"

The response was equally cool. "He is but you're not. If you've gone psycho we need to know, or if there's someone out to get to you."

Kakashi scowled again. "So you think I did get hit on the head too hard that time. Is that why they're still with me?" He nodded towards his shadows.

"Partly, and Tusenade still thinks you might bolt. She claims the way you've been acting is classic remorse, but she can't read people like I can. That's why she's such a lousy card player."

The scarred man moved close into Kakashi's personal space, seeming to loom over him suddenly. "But I also know that you're a devious bastard. And if it turns out that she's right and I'm wrong and you did half-kill Iruka, I'll bring you down. You may be a genius but in my own way I'm even more dangerous than you."

The silver haired nin grimaced under his mask, from the way his stomach tightened he knew that it was true. He scratched his head nervously. "Well thanks for the vote of support. I think."

Ibiki's expression was unreadable. "Humph, just don't try going past the gate without an escort. You'd never make it."

They'd been climbing the steps inside the building while they spoke, letting their undisguised footsteps echo through the empty stairwell. Kakashi avoided the protective traps automatically and used his key to open the door.

"Not damaged," he said as an afterthought, running his hand over the lock. But he knew that didn't mean anything, any decent shinobi could pick a lock.

Once inside Kakashi could hardly stand to look. Everything in the apartment fairly screamed at him how desperately he wanted the man that he knew he should give up. The neat living room was just as he'd left it. Two of his bright orange books lying on the table, next to a stack of graded papers and a red pen. The couch they'd spent so many evenings on together, not needing to talk, just basking in each other's company, with a few well scrubbed tell-tale stains where they had done more than just bask.

The bedroom door was open and Kakashi was drawn to the bed, irresistibly. It had been neatly made since he had dragged himself out of it two days before, and had one of his uniforms, washed and ironed, piled on his pillow. There was a feather on top of the uniform. A stiff brown goose feather. The copy nin couldn't resist an inward smile as he remembered that feather. How Iruka had squealed and groaned, pinned underneath him, as he used its fine tip to tickle those oh so sensitive nipples until they almost glowed red.

"Aah stop it Kakashi, if you keep on like this I'm gonna come."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"I wanna save it."

"Really, and who are you saving it for?"

"For you, you dope. You know what I want."

"Well we can do that too, later."

"Kakashi!" It was Ibiki's voice. "Yes it's a nice bed. Now can we do what we came here to do?"

Kakashi turned around sharply to face him, slipping the feather into his pocket. He'd come back later and steal a sheet. Then he could sleep in his cold bed tonight surrounded by the smell of Iruka's warm brown body. Maybe he'd take a pillow too. Hell he'd take everything. Just let them try to stop him.

"The bathroom Kakashi, are you ready?"

No, he'd never be ready. "Right, the bathroom. Sure."

He walked across to the bathroom, trying hard not to stare at the dark stains on the floor, took a paper scroll out of it's holder, sliced the tip of a finger on a kunai and spread a streak of blood down the edge of the paper.

"I was wondering when you'd drag me into this sorry mess." Pakkun said in his deep growl.

"Do you know what happened? Can you tell us?"

The dog sat down and scratched behind an ear lazily. "If you don't know how the hell would I"

Even his own dog seemed against him. "Well just tell us what you can smell here."

"Blood… and sex, but mostly blood."

Kakashi glared at the pug. "I can smell that much myself! Who's been in here?"

Pakkun whimpered, looking back with rounded puppy eyes. He hadn't expected to make his master so upset. "People, too many people. Must have had half the village through here, can't sort them out."

"Any Uchihas?"

Pakkun closed his eyes and took several deliberate sniffs. "I think so, I can pick up a trace of Uchiha. Dark and waxy with something sour, like vinegar. Not enough to say who."

"Anything else, anything particularly unusual?" Kakashi pressed.

"Graves… and snakes, not Konoha smells." The dog pricked up his ears hopefully. "Is that unusual enough for you?"

Kakashi reached down and scratched him behind an ear. "Thank you Pakkun, you can go."

The dog grunted and poofed out of sight.

Ibiki frowned. He picked up a bar of soap from the sink and sniffed at its flowery fragrance before putting it back and rubbing his soapy fingers together.

"So it could be Itachi, but not exactly the kind of evidence I'd hoped for."

"At least you have something to work with now."

"Yeah, graves and snakes. Hey what do you mean me? Where do you think you're going?"

Kakashi lowered his eyelid and peeked up at the other man self-consciously.

"To the hospital. I said I'd be back to see him soon."


	3. Chapter 3

Kakashi arrived at the hospital at the same time as Anko and Shikaku. He pressed himself against the wall as the konoichi was rushed past on a gurney, quickly noting the purple lines around her throat, the broken blood vessels round her eyes and the little trickle of blood flowing out of her left ear. Genma was waiting in triage, a windowless room with fluorescent lights and walls hung with scrolls of soothing landscapes that did nothing to alleviate its bleakness.

"So the patrol was attacked. By Sound." Kakashi said, sitting on the hard wooden bench next to him.

Genma sighed and brushed some stray hairs away from his face allowing Kakashi to see the lines around his wrist, some of them cut deeply enough to be crusted with blood.

"Yeah, but I don't think it was an attack. I think we just bumped into them. As soon as they saw we had the upper hand they killed their own gennins and ran."

Kakashi wished that he was more shocked, but he remembered Orochimaru of Hidden Sound only too well.

"Where'd it happen?"

Genma screwed up his eyes against the harsh lights and leaned back against the wall. Shit he was tired.

"By the old salt mine, right where you got ambushed that time." Suddenly his eyes blinked open and he turned towards the other man. "That wasn't Sound was it?"

Kakashi really didn't need anymore reminders of that painful incident right now.

"Never found out. But if it was it would explain why I never saw that blow coming." He raised his hand to his head automatically to rub at the scar. "If I was blasted by a sonic attack I could have cracked my head on a rock."

He paused for a moment, thinking through the possible implications. "Have you reported this? That Hidden Sound is poking around in our area?"

Genma shook his head. "Not yet, came straight here. Haven't told anyone about the snakes either."

"Snakes?" Something in the back of Kakashi's brain set off an alarm.

"Yeah, they were carrying snakes, dozens of them."

Genma shrugged, then paused and turned to look Kakashi directly in the eye. He squeezed his damaged wrist with the other hand and sucked in sharply, as if the pain would help him make a painful decision. Then he turned away, leaning back into the wall and spoke very very quietly, under his breath. The other jounin had to use chakra to hear, even though he was only two feet away.

"I'm gonna tell you something. I know I shouldn't and I'll catch hell if anyone finds out, but you're my friend and dammit you have every right to know. There've been other sharigan attacks, two that I know of, Iruka wasn't the first victim."

Kakashi showed no reaction at all, he looked up at an imaginary fly on the ceiling.

"Memories gone?" He asked in the same barely audible whisper.

"Not that I've heard. Enhanced more like, they've gone practically loco, screaming about the kyuubi. Been isolated and locked up so they don't start a panic."

"Any clues?"

"They're sure Itachi's well out of the picture so when Iruka… well it didn't seem like a coincidence. Look, you were ambushed out by the old mine. Even you don't know what happened. Then we were attacked there again today. If I didn't know there's nothing in this world or the next that could twist your mind to hurt 'Ruka, I'd be suspicious myself."

At that moment the door opened and Nara Shikaku wandered in, frowning and tugging at his ponytail.

"Well they say I'm good to go, but my wife is going to kill me, coming home with a concussion. She had plans tonight."

The two other men exchanged the briefest glance, then Genma and Shikaku left to make their report and Kakashi headed towards the main wards.

He hadn't gone far when he was stopped again, this time by the sight of an orange figure, sitting hunched over on the floor next to the main doorway.

"Naruto! Have you come to visit Iruka-sensei?"

The blond head jerked up. "Kakashi-sensei! Er, yes." His voice faded to a whisper. "But they won't let me in."

His expression became fixed and grim. "There's still a lot of people that don't like me. You know because… "

Unexpectedly he brightened a little, apparently more from habit than anything else. "I was hoping someone would come out who could tell me how he is."

The copy nin bristled with outrage.

"Come with me Naruto. We'll see him together."

The boy's face split into a huge grin and he bounced to his feet. "Really Kakashi-sensei? You're the best. I'm really sorry I called you a bastard all those times."

The man scowled and hit him on the head playfully. "Right, but you have to promise not to be too loud. He's still recovering. And don't be surprised if he seems er… strange, he's lost some of his memory."

Kakashi swallowed hard and took a deep breath, reaching for just the right carefree tone.

"He didn't remember me at all yesterday."

Naruto grinned up at him. "You're kidding right? Who could forget a bastard like you?"

Although he was part of his team, Kakashi rarely saw Naruto other than in training or on missions. Now the hostile stares that the boy attracted made Kakashi realise how little time he had spent with him around regular villagers. And despite the Naruto's seeming indifference, even without the sharigan, he could see the little flinches of pain that they caused. However no one seemed inclined to challenge the elite jounin, even if he did want to bring a monster into a hospital.

The room Iruka had been moved to was larger and more cheerful, with sunlight streaming through an open window. The door was open and Naruto barreled straight through it.

Kakashi moved like lightening to intercept the lunge. "Careful he had his spleen removed yesterday!"

"S'ok I wasn't gonna jump on him, I just wanted to get over here fast."

He looked at the teacher and almost growled. "Iruka-sensei you look real bad. Just wait till I find who did this, I'm gonna rip them apart!"

Iruka had pulled the blanket up to his chin. He looked at the boy nervously, then at Kakashi and blushed, smiling broadly.

"Thank you for coming to see me again Hatake-sama. I'm truly honoured by your interest in my recovery, although I must admit I'm rather surprised."

Kakashi chuckled to cover his wretchedness then grinned back.

"I promised that I'd come back to see you soon. Our village needs sharp well-educated genins, the dull one's aren't half as much fun to drive crazy. Speaking of genins, I found Naruto here outside. He's been waiting to see you for a long time."

Iruka gasped at the mention of the name. "Naruto." He repeated, looking at the boy closely.

Then struggling to keep his voice level he said, "Will you get me some water from the drinking fountain down the hall? It's much cooler than the water from the sink in here."

"'Course Iruka-sensei." The boy grabbed a cup and bounced out of the room.

As soon as he was gone Iruka rounded on the copy nin, his eyes full of pain. "Is that really the kyuubi? Why did you bring him with you? You must know what he did!"

Even kakashi couldn't hide his surprise. "But he's Naruto! Your former student? I thought you'd be glad to see him."

"My student! That's not possible. I would never have allowed that… that thing in my classroom with defenseless children."

They were cut off by a powerful and familiar presence entering the doorway. Tsunade was standing with another medic, a handsome young man with dark eyes and spiky black hair barely restrained by a leaf headband. She snorted when she saw Kakashi. In response he bowed politely, carefully keeping his expression neutral.

"Relax Umino-sensei." She ordered as Iruka pulled himself up with a wince of pain.

She nodded towards the man with her, who walked over to the bed, smiling a little too easily. "This is Ochiro Akira, he will be taking over your medical care from now on."

"Akira-san! I haven't seen you in years." Iruka said opening his eyes wide and smiling back in recognition.

"Yes Iruka-san." The man beamed. "As you can see I'm a doctor now. When I failed the chuunin exam the second time I decided that maybe healing would be a better career."

Still smiling he stepped over to the bedside and tenderly touched the teacher's bruised face, then slipped an arm behind him and eased him into a more comfortable position.

Kakaski watched the other man touching his lover, so gently and so intimately. He wanted to tear the doctor's hands off his Iruka and throw the son-of –a-bitch across the room. But it wasn't _his_ Iruka anymore. Wasn't _that_ what he'd decided? Didn't he just want the teacher to be safe and happy?

He turned away, desperately masking any suspicious changes in his chakra from Tsusenade. It was then that he realised that he hadn't noticed exactly when Naruto had came back into the room. Of course Tsumade had been watching Kakashi far to closely to miss any of this. However what they were both too distracted to see was the brief flare of red around the fox boy's navel.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi leaned against the cold paint of the corridor wall, as the stale antiseptic air closed in, threatening to stifle him. He wondered exactly when he had grabbed Naruto's hand and pulled him of the hospital room. This tiny loss of control was more terrifying to him than anything he could remember. Why hadn't Tsunade chosen an old ugly doctor to take care of Iruka's? Better yet an old ugly woman doctor. Of course he knew why. She was testing him, trying to make him do something stupid.

Suddenly Naruto yanked his hand away and ran. He followed blindly, grateful for the distraction. When they stopped they were standing outside in the sunlight.

The boy stood panting for a minute then voiced his pain in an anguished wail. If only Kakashi could do the same. He took his student's shoulders and stared into his eyes, wanting to comfort, reassure, anything. But immediately looked away, seeing too much of his own hurt reflected there.

He was pathetic, was this really all it took to bring him down? His focus was shot and his thoughts were scattered all over the place. What would his father think of him? No he wasn't going to go there! He was Hatake kakashi, the mind-game master of all time, and his mind was completely fucked. He didn't even have what it took to help this kid.

The best he could do was to repeat what he had said earlier. "I did warn you that he might not know you."

Naruto sniffed loudly, suppressing tears. "S'not just that."

The fox boy could feel his chakra becoming unstable again and clenched both hands over his stomach to control it.

"The way he looked at me. 'S the way everyone looks at me. 'S if he hates me."

Kakashi still couldn't look into those eyes.

"Of course he doesn't hate you."

He despised himself for the lie, while hoping beyond hope that it wasn't really a lie.

He forced a thin smile, more for his own benefit than Naruto's, the boy wouldn't see it behind the mask anyway.

"For one thing I don't think Iruka-sensei's capable of hating anyone. He just doesn't remember you". He took a breath. "And it's not just you, he doesn't remember me either."

They were walking away from the hospital as they spoke. Kakashi needed to put some distance between himself and that sweet faced doctor. He felt sick at the thought of the man examining his lover. Running his hands over that soft brown skin, treating his wounds and soothing his pain. Doing all the things that _he_ longed to do for Iruka so desperately.

It was true about the villagers though. Half the people they passed gave Naruto hostile stares or crossed the road to avoid getting close to him. As before Kakashi noticed the boy's reaction, but now each flinch came with a sharp little pulse of chakra. He was sure he hadn't seen _that_ earlier, or maybe he'd just been too distracted, thinking over what Genma had shared with him.

Naruto scrunched up his face to think, then to Kakashi's amazement broke out in a broad grin.

"Yeah that's true and you two are more than just good friends right?"

"What do you mean?" Kakashi desperately fought to keep his voice even. Was their relationship that obvious? Despite all their care?"

"Cos Iruka-sensei's different when you're around. Anyone can see you're special to him, just like I am."

Special, just like Naruto. Kakashi felt himself relax, perhaps the kid _hadn't_ worked it out. He could be very dense after all."

"Different?"

The copy nin dared to probe deeper, steeling himself against the boy's godawful bluntness. Of course he couldn't know what Iruka was like when he wasn't around because then he… wasn't around.

Naruto twisted his face into an ugly grimace and kicked at the pavement with his sandal. "He's, I dunno, he's just sort of… happier."

This made Kakashi smile despite himself. Dear Iruka, he'd never had the kind of control over his emotions that a shinobi was supposed to have. But still, even if Naruto hadn't connected all the dots it didn't mean no one else had. Was that the weak link? How their secret had got out?

Naruto continued his stream of consciousness.

"Well you and me, we're like his best friends, aren't we? His family. And he doesn't remember either of us. But he knew Hokage-baba right off, and that other geezer. It's like the more he liked you the less he remembers you."

As he looked down into Naruto's solemn face Kakashi could feel the cloth over the sharigan hot and wet again. In his clumsy bumbling way the boy had hit on the truth that he had missed. To wipe out the memory of _him_, someone had erased Iruka's memory of the boy he loved too. Had he lost all his memories of everyone who was precious to him? The man was born to love, and be loved. Taking that away would leave him a hollow shell of his true self.

This was something Kakashi would not allow. If someone had used him as a tool to do it, he would kill them, and maybe himself.

The fox boy was still talking.

"Well if he can't remember me I guess I'll just have to make him like me all over again, right?"

Naruto looked up, eyes shining brightly.

"And that's gonna take a lot of ramen."

Kakashi's smile was genuine as he saw the infectious grin and his hand went out to ruffle the boy's hair.

Then he turned away and said under his breath. "If that's all it takes I'll buy the ramen." All the ramen in the world.


	4. Chapter 4

Hatake Kakashi sat on a rooftop in the morning sun, looking directly down onto the village square. He had been thinking. He had a lot of time for that now. Hell, without his team to train, missions or- he pointedly insisted to himself- Iruka, he had nothing but time. And for the first time in days he felt that he had a clue. The previous day he had taken Naruto to Ichiraku's after leaving the hospital. Determined to stuff the boy with so much ramen that at least one of them would feel better.

While he was there, half listening to Naruto's plan to make himself his favourite teacher's favourite again, he had realised something. It wasn't him.

Yes he had mastered the blood limit of the sharigan, and yes he could use it to change memories, _but only the memories he knew. _There was simply no way that he could have altered Iruka's memories of Naruto _because he didn't know what they were_. He wouldn't know where to look for them because his eye, Obito's eye, had never seen them. Genma was right, he did not and never would hurt Iruka. The realisation almost restored his sanity.

He touched the throbbing eye through his headband, it wasn't his eye. He needed information, and there was only one person in Konoha who might have the answers to his questions.

Kakashi found Sasuke in the genin training field, battling one of his own clones. But a clone made taller and older looking, like an older brother. He blasted the clone as soon as he saw his teacher. Then stood silently, some might even say insolently, waiting for his sensei to come over to him

"I thought you weren't gonna be here today."

Kakashi didn't waste the effort on a fake smile, he knew that Sasuke would see through it anyway.

"I came to talk to you, you must have heard about Iruka-sensei?"

The boy gave him a dark glare and looked at the ground.

Kakashi hadn't really expected an answer. "Did you know it was sharigan attack?"

Sasuke looked up coolly. "Did you get tired of him?"

Kakashi pointedly ignored the goading. "It wasn't me Sasuke, and I don't think it was you either."

The boy twitched and his stare intensified. There was only one other sharigan user.

The copy nin moved closer, letting Sasuke feel the danger pulsing through his chakra.

"His memory was tampered with. He doesn't remember me at all, or Naruto." He paused, letting it sink in. "Could your brother do that?"

Dark eyes darkened even more.

"How would I know what my brother can do?"

Sasuke answered flatly even while feeling the glow of a certain… satisfaction. He had never acknowledged his jealousy towards to other orphan boy over their teacher's affection. He'd told himself that he didn't need to be loved, didn't want it. But it had still rankled.

The man pushed further. "There must be some things your family knows about the sharigan that no one else does."

"I don't have any family, I thought you knew that."

There was just a little too much control in his voice.

Kakashi took a deep breath. He wasn't about to be put off now. "There must be records of some kind, surely?"

Sasuke stared down the copy-nin. He had no business asking questions, dragging up old pain.

Then something inside him gave in and he blinked. If Itachi was involved then he needed to know about it. He didn't care what his brother was doing, what nasty intrigues he was caught up in, but knowledge was power and his revenge would demand all the power he could get.

"Memory masters, they're called memory masters. I read it in the family archives. Some Uchihas had an advanced ability, they had a way of using sharigan hypnosis to see into memories. I mean really see, everything. They could make people remember anything, even if they'd totally repressed it, or they could seal away memories completely, forever."

Kakashi's heart sank. To break the seal, to get the old Iruka back, he might have to make a deal with the enemy. He wondered if Tsunade knew that too.

"Could your brother be a memory master?"

Sasuke thought for a moment.

"It's not very likely. It's a bloodline skill, there've never been any in my branch of the Uchiha clan."

Kakashi ran his fingers through his hair and scratched the back of his head. "Then there must be another sharigan user out there, and when I find him I'll kill him."

"Hmm." Sasuke grunted, eyes fixed on the ground. His rare moment of sharing seemed to be over.

But then he stared up at the man next to him wide eyed, and suddenly he looked like the child that he should have been and never was.

"It's a curse you know, the eye. My clan's curse, worse than this one." He touched the side of his neck. "You should get rid of it. You have a choice."

"What?"

Even the cool copy nin was shaken.

"It was a gift from my dearest friend, it's my greatest strength.

Sasuke looked away. "Gift, curse, they're the same. Like the two sides of a coin. It just depends who's using it and why. You think it makes you strong but it makes you weak too."

He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Just hope you don't meet someone who knows how use it against you."

Kakashi put his hands on his student's shoulders and bent down to his level, forcing the boy to look at him.

"Sasuke, are you trying to tell me something?"

But the brief flash of innocence had gone from his eyes.

"No, nothing. It doesn't matter. It's just… just, remember what the sharigan did to my family."

Sasuke wriggled out of the grip then walked away. He didn't hurry but he didn't hesitate either, as if that was exactly what he had intended to do all along.

Finally Kakashi had a clear course of action. Well not exactly clear, but he did know that he had to find this so-called memory master and find out how to break the seal on Iruka's memories. It wouldn't be easy, in fact it might be damn near impossible while he was still forbidden to leave the village. He was still being watched much too closely and he couldn't risk incriminating himself or he would loose the freedom he still had. Then he'd be really screwed. Shit! Was there someone who would be willing to search for the sharigan user for him? Someone he could trust completely?

Lucky chance. He saw a man coming towards him on the long narrow street. Too far away for him to feel his chakra, but there was only one shinobi in Konoha who walked with that provocative graceful saunter. Genma-san, he would be perfect. And he was reckless enough and fond enough of Iruka to take the risk. Kakashi quickened his pace towards him.

Suddenly the man ahead stopped and stooped down, as if picking something up off the ground. As he bent down Kakashi noticed that Genma's hair looked unusually pale, even allowing for the glare of the bright midday sun. At the same time the figure seemed smaller and slighter than it should be, although the distance made it hard to judge. As Kakashi was wondering who else it could be, the man froze and turned towards him slowly. Had he just noticed the copy nin's attention? Moving as if suddenly jolted into action he tossed the object he had picked up onto the side of the road and vanished.

In a few seconds Kakashi covered the ground to where the man had been standing. There were no lingering traces of chakra in the air, suspicious in itself for someone in their home village. He looked around for the discarded object.

"What do you have there?" A voice said behind him as he picked it up.

He didn't need to turn to know who it was. "Dead snake Ibiki-san." He said offering it to him.

The interrogation expert took it as if it was a length of rope. He fingered the walnut sized crater in the centre of its head.

"Looks like it was killed by boys throwing stones." He suggested handing it back.

"You don't think it's significant do you? You know 'graves and snakes'."

The grin on Ibiki's face looked so out of place that Kakashi backed up a step.

"Hatake-san, I'm reasonably sure that Iruka-sensei wasn't attacked by a dead snake."

Kakashi ignored the put-down, his mind was working double time trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.

"There was a man too, didn't you see him?"

Ibiki's expression turned to ice.

"Itachi?"

kakashi shook his head thoughtfully.

"No, not an Uchiha. Blond."

Ibiki looked around then pointed out a small bar on the next corner. "Let's sit down and you can tell me about it.

The tiny bar had to be the most unpleasant in the village. But it was empty, dark and therefore private. The acrid smell in the air was made up of equal parts sake, stale smoke and vomit. Half groping through the gloom, they found the most isolated table, in a corner at the back and sat down. With a small cringe Kakshi noticed that the light shade over the dim bulb above them was so dirty that it looked as if it was covered in brown fur.

By the time the tea Ibiki had ordered arrived, kakshi had described the man he had seen in as much detail as possible. He hoped this would count as an official report and spare him a trip to the mission room. That place held too many memories right now.

He stared at the teacup that was placed in front of him, there was no way he was even touching anything in a place like this. Torture must have dulled the other man's senses however, or strengthened his stomach. Ibiki picked up his cup and sipped the dull liquid indifferently.

"Think he was from sound?" Kakashi asked.

Ibiki shrugged.

"Seems an obvious guess. But who, and why, and how the hell did he get in past the gate?"

Kakashi nudged his headband up a fraction of an inch and leaned back so that he could see with both eyes.

"What have you found out about the other sharigan attacks?"

The interrogator's lack of reaction told him all he needed to know.

"Same pattern. Beaten, no memory of it. Two before Iruka and two more since. All of them screaming about the kyuubi. The whole village is on edge, it would only take one of them running around to start a panic."

The sharigan flared slightly. Kakashi leaned forward to cover it before it gave him away, bristling with indignation. Two since Iruka. Fuck, then they had to know he was innocent. Had the ANBU shadows gone? Had he been too busy going through hell to notice?

"And you didn't think to tell me this?"

The big man slowly finished his tea.

"You didn't need to know."

Kakashi was on his feet in an instant.

Ibiki's hand was on his sleeve almost as fast.

Gripping the fabric tightly, he spoke quietly but pointedly, with something in his voice that Kakashi had never heard from him before. It might almost be kindness.

"I do care you know. About Iruka, the village, hell even about you. I do what I do to protect them. Just like you do."

Some of the tension left the Kakashi's body. Ibiki noticed and relaxed slightly too.

"Sit down, I want to ask you about the Uchiha kid's seal."

In the copy nin's mind two of the puzzle pieces came together, but they still didn't fit. Sasuke had Uchiha eyes and Orochimaru's curse. But the boy didn't have the control to hurt the teacher, not like that. And he'd sealed the curse himself.

He sat back down and looked across at the scarred face.

"I saw him today, he seemed fine. Well at least the seal seemed fine, I didn't notice anything wrong."

What would it take to break it?

At least this was a question Kakashi knew the answer to.

"Like any seal it can be overcome by strong enough emotions. Any emotion will do it, it's the power that counts.

"Then with that cold little bastard were probably safe." Ibiki ended the sentence with something between a smirk and a sneer.

This time, when Kakashi stood to leave, he let him.

Kakashi stood outside the bar, breathing deeply to purge the foul air out of his lungs.

He should check Sasuke's seal and make sure that it wasn't showing any strain.

He should see Naruto and warn him about the mood in the village.

He should see the Hokage and demand to know what the hell was going on.

He should find Genma and find out what was happening with Sound.

His feet turned towards the hospital.


	5. Chapter 5

Iruka was reading a scroll. One of several scattered on the bed. The bandages had been removed from his face, which was no longer swollen, although it was still marked by purple bruises. The largest almost dark enough to hide the scar over his nose.

He looked up as the copy nin entered, greeting him with a wide smile.

"Hatake-sama, I thought you might not come here today, you're much later than usual."

"Well I was in the area anyway." He lied. "Actually I'm surprised they're still keeping you here, you seem to have made a good recovery from the surgery."

Iruka sighed heavily. "Yes I know. Normally I could have gone home by now but I live on my own." He held up his bandaged hands. "These are still pretty useless so I can't take care of myself yet."

Kakashi nodded sympathetically. Part of him was relieved that the teacher was being kept in the hospital where it was safe, and the other part was very very unhappy.

Against every instinct that was screaming at him to leave it, Kakashi heard himself say. "So how is your new doctor?"

Iruka smiled a little too readily.

"Oh he's an excellent doctor, it was a good choice for him. Although I'm sure he would have been a good shinobi too if he'd really tried."

Kakashi struggled to keep yesterday's images out of his mind.

"You seem to know him?"

Iruka's face tinged pink between the bruises. "Yes, he was in my class at the academy."

The copy nin couldn't resist picking at the sore.

"Was he your friend."

Iruka lowered his eyes behind his dark lashes. "No, I didn't have any real friends."

The answer hung in the air, full of loneliness and regret.

"Of course he was much smarter than me, and very popular."

The teacher put his hands over his face, then peeped out between the bandages mischievously.

"Perhaps I shouldn't tell you this but he did get me into terrible trouble once." He paused and took a deep breath. "We must have been about thirteen years old, about a year after my parents were…"

His voice trailed off sadly. Then with a determined shake of the head he continued.

"Well as I was saying… he, well, he dragged me back into the woods during shuriken practice and one of the teachers caught us there kissing." Iruka's blushed deepened. "Actually he had his hand pretty far down my pants too. Of course he started it, I would never have been that bold."

Kakashi's heart pounded

"You were… kissing!"

Kakashi hesitated before asking the question he really wanted to hear the answer to. "Did you have a crush on him?"

Iruka didn't hesitate at all. "Hell yes, I was _madly_ in love with him. We all were, the boys as well as the girls, he was _georgeous_… still is, well you saw. But that's the only time he ever paid any attention to me. I guess I was just the closest one to the woods, and I expect that he knew I would get all the blame. I had something of a reputation for trouble back then."

Kakashi wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question.

"Are you in love with him now?"

Iruka lifted his head and laughed, easily and happily.

"Hardly, it was just a crush. He's really not my type, you know the charming playboy kind of thing."

His smile faded and he glanced at the copy nin furtively.

"Besides, I think I'm in love with someone else."

Kakashi hadn't seen this coming.

"Really who?"

He braced himself for the answer. Whatever the man said he knew it would be devastating, but for different reasons.

All the blood drained from the teacher's face, making the bruises stand out like continents on a map of the world.

"You. I think I'm in love with you."

Kakashi gaped at the damaged, haunted face, unable to speak.

Iruka looked down as if the bed sheets had suddenly become quite fascinating. There was a long awkward silence. When he finally continued it was in a hoarse whisper.

"Do you love me too? I haven't dared to tell you, dared to ask." His eyes darted upward for a moment then back to the sheet. "I was afraid of how you would react. That you wouldn't come to see me again. But you have, you've come to see me, every day. That's why I let myself hope…"

His voice trailed off again as he looked up to hold Kakashi's gaze. His eyes pleading for some kind of reaction.

Kakashi struggled with himself. He had to say no. He had to walk away. Iruka had almost been killed because of him. He wouldn't let it happen again.

"What… what do you remember?"

Iruka shook his head, making the copy nin's heart flutter as he watched the cute ponytail.

"Nothing. I don't remember anything at all. But I can feel it, here."

He put his hand over his heart and looked at the other man with such pure unguarded devotion that it took all of Kakashi's famous control not to wrap his arms around him, pull down his mask and drown him with kisses.

Instead he nodded, kindly but distantly.

"Iruka-sensei, your feelings are still confused. We're friends, good friends. It's perfectly normal for you to feel needy right now. I just happen to be the one those feelings have focused on." His visible eye curled into its trademark crescent while the hidden one became quite damp. "But I am very flattered, usually it's a pretty nurse."

The knot in Kakashi's gut tightened with every word. It had been a good save, sometimes being a genius was painful but useful.

The teacher lay back on his pillows. He looked as if a light had been extinguished somewhere inside. The copy nin sat on the bed facing him. He took the bandaged hands in his. Iruka flinched at the contact and pressed himself back into his bedding.

Kakashi knew that he had done the right thing, so why was the guilt unbearable?

"Come and have dinner with me." He said suddenly. "You said yourself that you could go home except for your hands, well let me be your hands this evening. You've been lying here brooding for too long and some decent food will be good for you."

Kakasi found some of Iruka's clean clothes in a closet. Piled next to sheets, towels, bandages, gauzes, catheters and other hospital supplies so depressing that he had to avoid looking at them. One of the teacher's friends from the academy must have brought them in, knowing that they would make Iruka feel just a little closer to going home.

He dressed him carefully but quickly, not letting his hands wander as they once would have, or his mind think about the way he would like them to wander. After buttoning Iruka's vest loosely over his left arm, which was in a cast, he sat the man next to him on the edge of the bed.

"Would you like me to carry you or can you walk?" He deliberately did not look at the blush that he knew must be colouring the other man's cheeks."

"If you don't mind I'd rather walk. I really need to get some strength back into my muscles."

Kakashi positioned Iruka's right arm across his shoulders and slowly stood up, pulling the teacher to his feet. The smaller man grunted at the strain on his sore body but supported his own weight quite well. With their bodies pressed hard together, in a way they both found unsettlingly delicious, they made their way out of the hospital.

By the time they were standing outside in the last fading shadows of dusk, Iruka's strength was gone. Without asking for permission, Kakashi hoisted him onto his back as if he weighed no more than a child, and leapt onto the roof of the building across the street.

As he sailed from rooftop to rooftop, to the restaurant a mile away, he heard the other man whisper. "Do you think I'll ever be able to fly like this again, on my own I mean?"

Kakashi smiled as he whispered back. "Of course you will, sooner than you think. We'll go together and lie on the academy roof to watch the stars the way we used to."

He felt the little explosion of air on his ear as the teacher chuckled. Do you look at the stars with all your friends Hatake-san?"

Kakashi bit his tongue. "We both like stars." He said much too gruffly. "And we _are _friends, call me Kakashi."

With a burst of chakra he landed in the street outside the restaurant and gently set his passenger on his feet. Supporting him as before they went inside and sat at a remote corner table.

"I thought we would go to Ichiraku's." Iruka said looking around uneasily at the quietly elegant surroundings and hovering geisha costumed waitresses.

There was a happy twinkle in the copy nin's eye. He took off his mask and smiled. Iruka gasped. Had he ever seen that face before, if he had how could he have possibly forgotten it?

"This place is more comfortable, you can hardly eat perched on a stool, and I thought you'd prefer somewhere more private if I'm going to feed you."

Iruka hadn't thought of that, of course the nurses had been feeding him in the hospital but they'd been doing everything else too, so he hadn't really noticed. He hadn't eaten much anyway, he had no appetite and the food wasn't good.

He rested his bandaged hands, palms up on the tabletop and looked at them dismally.

"I'm surprised they aren't healing better, the rest of your wounds seem to be doing well." Kakashi said sympathetically.

Iruka sighed loudly. "Hakage-sama explained it to me. She removed all the skin to the thinnest layer possible and used a jutsu to slow healing."

"Slow it!"

Iruka nodded. "Yes it sounds strange but she said it would allow the cuts to heal and the skin to regrow in a more controlled natural way. If she had left it, or speeded up the healing I would have ended up with a lot scarring and I would have lost most of the sensation in my hands."

Kakashi thought of the dreamy look on Iruka's face as those hands had explored the most intimate parts of his body. Of the pleasure they had both felt as he slid them over his smooth pale skin and hard muscles. He carefully adjusted the twitching napkin on his lap. Ok, if Tsunade could pull this off he would forgive her every bitch thing she'd ever put him through.

Feeding Iruka was the most fun that Kakashi had had in days. He openly delighted in the man's pleasure at the excellent food. Scooping soup into his mouth and feeding him with chopsticks just a little too fast. That gave him opportunity to delight more secretly as he touched Iruka's lips with his fingertips and brushed his hand against his cheeks, while blotting broth and dribbles of sake from his chin.

They lingered over the meal. Kakashi skillfully keeping the conversation gentle and lighthearted, and Iruka just floating in the good feeling of being in the other man's presence. He was just plain happier when he was around him. So what if they were just good friends, that didn't mean that they could never be more. Kakashi knew that he had a crush on him and he didn't seem at all upset by it. That gave him a certain… freedom to do and say things that one man wouldn't normally do and say to another male friend. Iruka made up his mind, he would make Kakashi fall in love with him.

The dishes from the final course were cleaned away and Kakashi ordered desert. Iruka noticed how the pretty waitress fluttered around the other man, smiling attentively and fluttering her eyelashes. He felt a sharp pang of jealousy.

"I suppose you're used to that." He said, trying not to sound sullen.

"Used to what?" The older man asked with secret amusement, watching the show of emotions passing over the bruised face. He couldn't resist teasing just a little, the way he used to. He wouldn't wind him up too far, not enough to make him suspicious. But hell the man was just so damn cute.

Iruka blushed deeply. Yes scored one!

"Women all over you like that." He said to the tablecloth. "Well you're quite a catch, the copy nin of Konoha, famous Sharigan Hatake."

Kakashi looked over at the waitress and smiled. She blushed almost as deeply as Iruka under her pale makeup. The teacher's stomach knotted, this wasn't the way he had hoped things would go!

Kakashi was having way too much fun. He shrugged offhandedly. "I suppose, but she really isn't my type. You know, charming playgirl kind of thing."

Iruka forced a smile through his mortification. "Oh, what is your type?"

The copy nin looked around the sparsely populated restaurant. Then leaned in closely so that Iruka could feel his breath on his cheek. "I have some pictures in some books that I'd be happy to show you sometime."

To the teacher's relief the waitress came back with their desserts. She put three bowls of ice cream on the table.

Iruka laughed. "Surely you don't expect me to eat two ice creams. I know I've been living on hospital food, but that's a bit much.

Kakashi's expression became deadly serious under his smile. "No, Naruto should be here any minute, I asked him to join us for dessert."

He grabbed the younger man's unbroken right arm before he could shrink back into his chair, holding it in a gentle but unbreakable grip. "You have to see him, talk to him. He was very important to you, more like a little brother than a student."

Iruka fidgeted, eyes scanning the room. Looking at the walls, the table, the ceiling, anywhere but at that burning blue eye in front of him.

"I… I just can't. I hate him. He's the reason I can't even remember my mother's face, anything about her or my father. He killed both my parents, and hundreds of others. Made me an orphan and a miserable outcast for most of my life. Maybe what you're saying is true, but it's not true for me, not now."

The two shinobi were suddenly hit by a vivid flare of sinister chakra from behind a rice paper screen. Kakashi thought he recogised it from a long time ago, but by the time he had recovered enough to put on his mask and leap behind the screen, there was nothing there.

Naruto ran from the restaurant with the kyuubi's chakra swirling around him. He would go out into the woods, there was a place there where he used to hide when he was a little kid. He would be safe there. And if that didn't work, deep in his memory he knew of somewhere better. A place several miles to the south.


	6. Chapter 6

Iruka had smiled warmly at him when he had left him at the hospital the previous evening, and told the nurse whose job was to undress him and put him back in bed, that he'd had a wonderful time. But Kakashi knew that the idea of seeing Naruto, and the disturbing end to their meal, had left the teacher very unhappy. So when he knocked on the door of Iruka's by now familiar room, and the command to "Come in" seemed a little more clipped than usual, he hadn't been particularly surprised.

Inside the man he had come to see was propped up with a distinctive orange book lying on his knees. He looked at his visitor with an expression that even the genius jounin couldn't interpret.

"I asked one of my teacher friends to stop in at my apartment and pick up some stuff for me to read. I suppose I should have asked him to bring scrolls since I can't turn pages. But I didn't and he brought me a bunch of books. Well, I didn't remember this one so I asked a nurse to open it for me." His embarrassment was written all over his face but he took a deep breath and continued.

"Just what does this mean, it doesn't look like something you would give to an ordinary friend."

Using the back of his right hand he flipped the orange book over to the nervous copy nin, who picked it up gingerly and opened the front cover. Inside were the words, 'To my dearest Dolphin on Valentine's day-for inspiration. Your Scarecrow'.

Kakashi's stomach churned, he was so busted. There was no way in the world he could genius his way out of this.

There was only one way out now, the truth.

He pulled down his mask, using the few seconds of silence it bought from the teacher to gather his thoughts, and grinned sheepishly.

"Yes, I lied."

He paused waiting for a reaction, when there was none he continued.

"We've been lovers, discretely, for more than two years." He continued without giving the other man a chance to respond. "But I'm a dangerous man, it's dangerous to even know me. Everyone I've ever loved has died. After this happened, when you were attacked, I just couldn't risk it happening again… to you."

Iruka flushed scarlet and, considering the emotions that were visibly rampaging through him, his voice was a more controlled yell than might be expected.

"You pompous arrogant bastard! How dare you decide to just cut me off? Take out what… two years of my life without me even knowing? Don't I have the right to know when I've been dumped, the right to feel… something, even if it hurts? Especially if it hurts? How do you get to decide what I can feel and what I can't? I… I've been lying here for days, haunted by these feelings, not knowing where they came from. Then I realised that they always start when I see you. So what if it's dangerous, isn't that my decision to make? Dammit Hatake. It took everything I had to tell you the truth and you just lied and lied to me as if it was nothing. How could you do that?"

He fixed the other man with a cold glower, fury and hurt competing for control of his features.

The answer he got was almost a whisper. "It wasn't nothing Iruka, I promise it was the hardest… "

Everything that Kakashi had been keeping dammed up for almost a week broke through the floodgate. He looked at the angry flushed face that was set on furiously scolding and accusing him, cupped the teacher's jaw in his hands, and kissed him.

As soon as their lips touched they pressed in to meet each other, Kakashi sliding onto the bed in a single move to force as much of his body as he could against the other man's. He didn't even try to stop himself from trembling. Iruka felt kakashi's tongue in his mouth like some kind of alien fish, writhing and sliding, probing into every crevice, tickling and teasing, arousing something deeper than memory. There were hands too, in his hair, on his face, sliding down his sides to his hips, sending waves of fire through his body that all seemed to meet in his groin. His own hands were useless but his tongue was just as busy, caressing, tasting, lapping, feeding desperately on this wonderful desire. He willed his passion to flood through the other man, to meet the other's point for point and to blend them together into one glorious need.

When Kakashi finally broke away he held Iruka's face, still flushed but now breathless too, and just stared at him.

"God I want to fuck you so much, right now, right in this hospital bed."

Iruka was too lost in the swirl of his emotions to think straight.

"Yes, don't stop."

Kakashi's expression became deadly serious. He lifted his headband clear of the sharigan and looked hard at the gash in Iruka's side. Covering the eye again he ran his finger over the scar.

His voice crackled with disappointment. "Sorry, not yet. That's not going to be able to take very much strain for a while." Then he had another idea. He smiled and took a rumpled feather out of his pocket.

Suddenly Iruka realised what he had just agreed to. He was stunned. Closing his eyes tight he struggled to get back to some kind of sane reality. When he opened them he had been stripped of the hospital gown and the copy nin was poised on hands and knees above him with a ratty brown feather in his teeth. Taking the feather in one hand kakashi started to tickle Iruka's already aroused nipples.

The younger man flapped at him with his bandaged hands for a moment then started to writhe and squirm, panting with pleasure.

"Oh God stop, I didn't mean it. We can't do this here! What are you some kind of pervert?"

Kakashi darted his lips over the man under him in a hundred tiny kisses. His grin spoke volumes.

"You _have_ forgotten everything haven't you? Well it will be my pleasure to reeducate you Sensei!"

Iruka's horrified squawk was so predictable that Kakashi started to laugh with sheer joy. But then he realised that Iruka wasn't laughing with him, he was crying. Suddenly he was afraid. He rolled over onto the bed next to him, staring into his wet brown eyes. Chocolate under water.

"What's the matter? You're not upset that we're lovers… or disappointed, are you?"

"No! Well yes. It's… I can't remember you. I have this huge… feeling and there's nothing there with it but a hole. It hurts. Two years! And I don't know a thing about you. I've tried but I can't remember anything. It almost makes me wish that whoever did this to me had finished the job. Stuck that knife through my heart so that it wouldn't be so empty."

Kakashi dropped the feather and scooped the man into his arms.

"Don't, please! It's my heart too, you gave it to me two years ago. Just give me a little time and I promise I'll fill it back up again."

Iruka relaxed, he was starting to understand why he loved this man.

Kakashi felt the change in the other's chakra. Freeing a hand he pulled up his headband to expose both eyes, he wasn't going to miss any of this.

"I think I should start right now."

In an instant he was back in position, rearmed with the feather and using his wet agile tongue to claim the length of his lover's body. He started well below his navel just above the soft back fur. There'd be time to go back to the best part, the part he was neglecting, later. And he wanted this to last.

Iruka's sweet musky smell and slightly salty skin filled his senses as he started lapping a broad swipe up his firm abdomen, using his sharigan to make sure that the involuntary twitches he was causing didn't disturb the fresh scar. When he reached his chest he made a detour for each nipple, staying long enough to suck and nibble until Iruka was almost sobbing. But with pleasure this time.

He was halfway between his adam's apple and chin, ready to close in on that wonderfully inviting mouth, now half open and gasping loudly, when the door opened.

Ochiro Akira stood in the doorway. He looked over the scene, smirking and taking his time to appraise Iruka's naked, horizontal, but none-the-less very… erect, body.

"Hatake-san, Hakage-sama wants you to see her. She said I might find you in here."

Kakashi was standing by the bed in his customary lazy slouch, mask and headband in place, before the doctor had finished saying his name. He turned and pulled the mask down briefly for a final lingering kiss, then waved goodbye as Iruka rolled himself up in the blanket. A heap of quivering humiliation.

Ochiro Akira walked over to the bed, still smirking, and patted the part where he assumed the teachers bottom should be.

"Sensei-san, you really shouldn't get yourself into these situations, you always seem to get caught.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi was ushered into the Hokage's office and Tsunade was sitting at her desk waiting for him. She had a pencil on each of its front corners, a jutsu scroll on each of the back, and a teacup, from which he was sure he could smell something significantly more alcoholic than tea, in the dead centre. Shit, things must be bad.

She raked the fingers of her right hand through her hair, scraping it back from her face. He'd never seen her do that before. Then she stared at him as if she was about to make the one decision that would change the course of history. Perhaps she was.

"Hatake-san, you were in the western part of the village yesterday."

"Yes, I was with Morino-san, drinking tea. I'm sure he's already told you."

"It's before then that interests us. There was another sharigan attack in that part of town yesterday morning."

Not this crap again. His visible eye narrowed. Yes I was sitting around on my arse while villagers are being attacked because you won't let me do a damn thing to help stop it. "I'm sorry, I can't help you Hokage-sama. I've already told Morino-san everything I saw."

The Hokage shook her head irritably. "Yes. This man you claimed to see, did you recognise him at all?"

Claimed! There was no point getting angry, but at least she didn't seem to be blaming him outright this time. Kakashi thought hard. "There was something familiar, but I can't put a name or a face to him. At first I thought it was Genma-san. By the time I realised that I was mistaken I didn't have time to look more carefully."

"And the snake that you found?"

"Ibiki-san didn't think it was important."

"Dead snakes were found near three of the other most recent victims. We're looking to see if there are still any in the areas around the others."

"So you think it _is_ important?"

"Dammit Hatake! If I knew what was important I wouldn't be asking you!"

His eye rounded in surprise. "Are you asking for my opinion?"

Tsunade sighed and took a sip from the liquid in her teacup. "Hatake-san, there are three, count them three, sharigan users. Two of them in this village. The other one is a boy with limited sharigan ability, who would be recognised by almost anyone in Konoha and who does not have your skill at stealth and concealment

Kakashi felt the blood draining from his face under the mask. He looked unwaveringly at the Hokage and the ANBU behind her.

"So I'm still a suspect."

The Hokage put her cup back in the centre of her desk and arranged the pencils and scrolls in a square around it. "Give me one reason why you shouldn't be."

"Because I'd never betray my village and I'd never hurt Iruka-kun."

She picked up the cup and drained it. The hint of a smile flickered in her eyes. "That's two."

There was a long pause. Kakashi carefully held his chakra and kept his breath slow and even.

Suddenly Tsunade threw the teacup hard onto the floor, smashing it into dozens of pieces. "Dammit, Sound is behind this, it's obvious. But how or why… if I didn't know that damn snake bastard so well I'd swear he was playing games. But Orochimaru doesn't play games."

She gripped the edge of her desk and leaned towards him across it, her face as white as her knuckles.

"I want you to go out to Sound Hatake. Don't infiltrate, don't go into the village. I know the bastard's strength and we can't afford to lose you now. Just look around and check for rumours. Look for signs that they're preparing for war."

Kakashi's pulse quickened. "What about the old mine?" There was nothing to lose by asking now.

She waved a hand at him dismissively. "I've had Inuzuka's and their dogs sniffing around there for days, it's a dead end."

The copy nin bowed stiffly. "I'll leave at once. Will you inform Umino Iruka that I'll be away? He'll be expecting me to see him."

The ends of her lips curled into a smile that didn't extend to any other part of her face. "I'll make sure that your little teacher knows you're leaving."

Then her mouth became a thin line. She picked up the scrolls and thrust them towards him, breaking eye contact for the first time. "Don't use these unless you have to. As I said, we can't afford to lose you now." Her voice faded to a whisper. "And I was fond of your father."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Iruka was still hiding under the blanket an hour later, when he heard someone come into the room.

Dr. Ochiro coughed deliberately. You can come out now Iruka-san. Don't worry I won't tell anyone, I'm very discrete."

Iruka wriggled first his ponytail and then his head free. If only he could control his damn blushing. The doctor was standing next to him holding a hospital gown. There was still the trace of a smirk in his eyes.

"Come on, let me get you dressed, if you can call it that, but I'm sure you'll be more comfortable than lying there naked.

Iruka smiled gratefully as he let the other man pull him into a sitting position and slip on the gown. He felt the doctor brush against him as he tied it closed, then instinctively tensed. There was something in the man's intent that he hadn't felt before. Something quite unexpected.

Dr. Ochira noticed the reaction. "Iruka-chan, I've asked Hokage-sama to find you another medic. I really wouldn't want to violate the patient doctor relationship."

"Why? What do you mean Akira-san?" He really didn't want to know the answer.

The doctor sat on the bed and leaned in close, putting his arm around him. "I've enjoyed taking care of you rather more than I should. You were a pretty thing back in our academy days. And when I saw you er… playing today, I must admit that I was impressed at how much… bigger you've grown since then."

Iruka stiffened as he felt the doctor's hand rubbing along the length of his spine… under the gown.

He tried to pull away. "No, please Kakashi and I…" What was he saying? He couldn't remember, he really didn't know what he was to the famous Sharigan Hatake.

Yes he did, he knew that they loved each other, it was all he needed to know.

The doctor's hand tightened around his waist and he was pulled deep into the deepest part of the other man's aura. There was hot breath in his ear.

"Ah yes, these elite jounin, believe me I know their appeal. But unfortunately for you Hatake-san will be gone for a while. Hokage-sama asked me to tell you. And anyway, wouldn't your mother have been happier if she'd lived to see you with a nice safe doctor? Of course I wouldn't ask you to give up Hatake-san. I'm sure we'd both want other playmates, it's only natural for men like us.

Iruka's pulse raced. He felt something close to panic. "No really Akira-san, Kakashi and I, we… "

Iruka grabbed at the arm to pull it away, but stopped short and whimpered at the searing pain in his hands.

Akira stood and took the teacher's throbbing hands in his own. He placed a kiss in the center of each palm then put his fingers over Iruka's mouth to silence him. "I'll be back later. I promise _I_ won't leave you unsatisfied. And don't worry, as I said, I'm very discrete."

Then he was gone, leaving Iruka hurting with the burning pain and worse agitation.


	7. Chapter 7

Iruka lay still for a long time, his heart pounding as if it would burst. Hot tears spilled out of his eyes and down the sides of his face, making his ears uncomfortably wet and noisy. What could he do? He couldn't fight, he couldn't even form seals. Would Ochiro Akira actually rape him? Of course the doctor wouldn't see it that way if he did. He had known Akira-san since he was five and Akira always got what he wanted, he was incapable of taking no for an answer. Iruka had never felt more helpless. And Kakashi was gone.

Just what kind of man am I? He asked himself angrily. I call myself a Konoha shinobi and here I am whining because my lover isn't here to rescue me from this scary… what? Doctor? Ok so I'm wounded, like that's never happened before. I can't fight and I can't hold a weapon, not that I have any. So that leaves retreat. He looked down at the flimsy hospital gown and his heart sank. In his current state he didn't think he could summon the stealth needed to go through the streets almost naked and he couldn't dress himself with his teeth either.

Suddenly Iruka's mind came into sharp focus as he heard someone at the door. After a couple of long moments the door opened and two gennins walked in. They looked around the empty room.

Sasuke opened the closet door and lifted the towel draped over the bottom shelf. "Iruka-sensei, can I help you find something?

"Er no, it's ok, I have it." The teacher said extracting himself unsteadily and wrapping the towel around his torso as modestly as he could, while his cheeks flushed brilliant crimson.

Sasuke's face showed no emotion at all but Sakura's was almost as red as Iruka's as she desperately tried to suppress her giggles. "Iruka-sensei, what on earth… ?"

A glower from her former teacher made her stop short and change the subject. "Have you seen Naruto? He was supposed to meet us so we could see you together but he isn't anywhere."

The teacher looked at his two former students with horror, Naruto! As if he didn't have enough to deal with! Why did everyone insist on forcing that demon on him? He didn't think his nervous system could handle being in the same room as the kyuubi right now. One more reason why he had to get out.

Sakura, Sasuke will you help me. I… I just can't stay in here any longer. Sasuke will you help me to get dressed so that I can go home?"

Sauke looked at him coldly. "Wouldn't Kakashi-sensei want to be the one dressing you?"

Iruka was too desperate to pay any attention to the tiny sneer in his voice.

"Kakashi was called away by the Hokage before he could… " He blushed as he flashed back to just what Kakashi had been about to do. "I don't want to wait until he gets back. Please! I just want to go home."

Sakura waited outside as Sasuke eased Iruka into the shirt pants and sandals that Kakashi had left folded on the top shelf of the small closet. Then each supporting the man under one arm, they helped him to walk out of the hospital and onto the street. He was still weak and after a while just standing upright was an effort. The young teens were not as skillful at finding his balance as Kakashi had been, but by stopping to let him lean against a wall every few blocks, the two gennins gradually took him home.

Sasuke almost carried him up the steps to his apartment then left him propped against Sakura while he opened the door.

"Watch out for the traps." Iruka warned, but Sasuke had already avoided them. He gave the teacher a superior look and opened the door with a metal pick.

Once inside Iruka almost fell onto the couch. Relief flooded over him at being back in his own territory.

Sasuke looked at him darkly. "You were an idiot to leave the hospital."

Sakura gasped. "Sasuke! You can't call Iruka-sensei an idiot.

Sasuke glared at her. "Well he is." He turned back to the teacher letting him briefly see the swirling red sharigans. "I can see your hands. They'll be useless for weeks. How do you think you're going to cope on your own if you can't touch anything or pick anything up? You won't even be able take a piss without help."

Iruka looked down at the floor, unable to meet the boy's knowing eyes. "I had to get away, to come home."

The boy took his lack of denial as agreement.

"I'll stay here with you and help you until Kakashi-sensei gets back." He spoke with no more emotion than as if he had been commenting on the weather.

Iruka was stunned. "You don't need to do that Sasuke."

"Yes I do." There was no disagreeing with the look in the Uchiha's eyes. "Lie down you're tired, I'll make some tea. When did you last have something to eat? You won't heal if you don't eat properly. Sakura, go and buy milk, eggs, tofu, fresh fruit. I'll make a list."

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

It took Kakashi longer than he expected to reach Hidden Sound. Then he nearly went passed it in the dark, the place lived up to its name. Luckily he had picked up on the footsteps of a Sound messenger and his escort. Following silently with total stealth, he caught a few snatches of conversation between the two.

"I don't know why they insist on us bringing it here. Everyone knows he hasn't been in the village for months."

"Some other poor fool to run it over there."

"Hah, and then guard duty, that's a joke."

Parting from them in the marsh, he skirted round to the far side of the village, downwind. He hoped Tsunade appreciated his dedication, if there was one discomfort he could not stand it was cold wet feet. Immediately his nose told him everything that he had gone there to find out. The light breeze carried all the odors of a ninja village: breweries, bakeries, people, animals, dust. There was one smell missing, foundries. They were not making weapons, not preparing for war.

Strictly speaking he could leave now, but some confirmation would still be good. He nicked the side of his thumb and wiped the blood along the edge of a scroll. Pakkun appeared at his feet. The little dog cocked his head to one side.

"You were told not to go in there."

"Well I'm not, I'm sending you."

The Pakkun's eyes narrowed, on a dog the expression was particularly unsettling. "Hmph, like that's different. Do you still have those forbidden scrolls?"

Kakashi patted his inner pocket. "Of course why?"

"If I come running out of there with Orochinaru on my heels I'll expect you to use one."

They had been tracking back along the wall and were now in view of the gate. Pakkun darted forwards then squeezed under it and out of sight. Kakashi slipped back to a more defensible position, but one where he would still see anyone who came or went. You could learn a lot about a hidden village just by looking at its visitors, especially those that visited at night. But that night at least, none did.

When the little dog came scurrying back to his side three hours later, bars of grey light were visible on the long horizon to the east.

"So?"

Pakkun sat down and yawned, uncurling a surprisingly long tongue. "Nothing going on in there. Except for a few _colourful _characters you wouldn't even guess it's a ninja village."

The copy nin raised a white eyebrow. "Colourful characters?"

"Yeah, looks as if every freak from every hidden village on the continent has moved in here."

Kakashi thought for a moment. Could Sound have freaks more freakish than the Aburame clan? "And Orochimaru?"

"Not there. There are people moving around in the Kage's offices and the lights are on, but they're just keeping up appearances. I don't think he's been there for months."

Kakashi's mind flashed back to the snippet of complaint he had heard from the messenger. 'I don't know why they insist on us bringing it here. Everyone knows he hasn't been in the village for months.'

So no war and Orochimaru missing for months. That was news he could bring back to Konoha.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Within a day Iruka and Sasuke had fallen into a routine together.

Sasuke made tea and breakfast then helped the teacher to dress and tended to his wounded hands. They spent the morning working on building up his strength. At first just walking, then climbing stairs. Within a couple of days he could run from the bottom of the steps up the two flights to his apartment without even getting out of breath.

After lunch the boy would leave him resting on the couch with a few scrolls, while he attended to his own training and other business. He prepared dinner and after eating Sasuke would usually go out again but sometimes stay and make, if not exactly conversation, at least an effort to be more than a brooding silent presence.

Each night he would tie plastic bags around the teacher's hands, help him to bathe and settle him in bed.

The Uchiha boy had never looked after anyone, anything, other than himself in his life. Not even a goldfish. The experience of helping his old teacher back to health, even in this remote taciturn way, was new to him. Somewhere deep inside he found it richly rewarding.

He found himself getting up early so that he would be ready with tea and breakfast when Iruka woke. Feeding the teacher in particular pleased and amused him in a way he couldn't begin to understand, much less acknowledge.

Of course Iruka was aware of the, not exactly softening, but perhaps less insistence on being hard, in the boy's behaviour. After a few days, at breakfast he decided to risk a tiny opening. "I've enjoyed this Sasuke, you being here and caring for me."

Sasuke turned his back as if looking for something on the counter that he had forgotten. His answer was a well-honed reflex. "I don't care. I'm just doing my duty as one Konoha shinobi to another. Caring causes pain, it makes you weak."

Iruka kept his voice quiet and low, a teacher teaching, not a friend sharing, That would be too intimate for the boy to stand. "Pain and joy are the two sides of one coin. Affection can make you weak but it can make you so much stronger too. It's what makes us human. I remember when you first came into my class. I just wanted to hug you, you were so proud but you seemed so lonely."

Sasuke turned just enough to see the man out of the corner of one eye. "Why didn't you?"

Iruka risked a small chuckle. "Because you were Uchiha Sasuke, you would probably have taken my head off."

The boy stiffened. "I wouldn't have hurt you, I'm not a monster."

Naruto is the monster but you've always been willing to hug him. He thought, but didn't say.

Iruka seized his chance. "Can I hug you now?"

Sasuke gave him a dark look as if making a hard decision, then pulled the teacher to his feet and stood stiffly in front of him. Iruka slowly raised his arms around him and squeezed gently, holding him for a few seconds. He thought he felt a slight easing of muscle tension.

He lowered his arms and Sasuke stepped back. "I have to go out now, we need more milk." He said to the wall before hurrying out of the room.

During the rest of the day Iruka was almost certain that the dark haired boy was a little less careful to avoid physical contact with him. And that evening he stayed with the teacher, reading silently the whole time but apparently wanting to be in the same room, almost as if he was enjoying the company.

After being bathed and helped to bed, Iruka lay awake for a while. He could hear a sound from his guest bedroom that might just be sobbing.

Iruka woke up and reached out to Kakashi beside him. He wasn't there, that's right he had been called away for a mission. Suddenly Iruka lay very still, had he just _remembered_ what it felt like to have the silver haired man beside him? He closed his eyes and sat up slowly.

He remembered how when he woke and sat up in the morning, Kakashi would wrap his arms around his waist from the back. The teacher's skin tingled delightfully at the memory of the contact.

He remembered how one of his lover's hands would creep down to grope him, to tempt him to stay in bed a little longer, and with a wide grin he remembered how he succeeded about half the time.

He focussed on as many details as he could, trying to fix them in his brain so that he would never lose them again. He lay back down, reaching out to where he had felt the imaginary Kakashi beside him and was overwhelmed by the man's scent. He grabbed the sheet, bunching it up under his nose and inhaling deeply. It smelled freshly laundered, soap. Disappointed he let the _memory _of the smell flood back, Kakashi's smell, fresh and sharp with the tang of spice. He loved that man so much."

All at once he could remember everything. When they had met, how Kakashi had started showing up in unexpected places after that, how he had asked him out to dinner without warning, how he had pounced on Iruka that first time and how much Iruka had wanted to be pounced on. How could he have survived without these memories for, what? More than a week?

Then another memory invaded. His mother kissing him goodnight, his parents laughing with him as he learned to fly a kite. He could remember the them too, the kyuubi hadn't stolen all this from him after all.

The kyuubi.

A wide grin on a face with silly whisker-like lines, a shock of golden hair and the loudest voice in Konoha. Naruto. He loved Naruto, like he loved Kakashi, well not in the same way, but just as much. And he'd pushed him away, said that he hated him. Iruka sat up clutching at his chest and gasping with grief. He reached one of his bandaged hands towards a sudden ache in his back.

Sasuke burst into the room. He had felt the disturbance in the mans chakra two rooms away, "What is it? What's wrong?" He asked with far more emotion than Iruka was used to hearing in his voice.

Iruka looked around the room wildly. "I… I remember everything. Kakashi, my parents, everything. But Naruto, I have to see him, I have to tell him that I still love him. I've been so cold, so unkind. You see I didn't, I couldn't remember"

Sasuke felt something tighten inside. So the memory seal had broken. Now he'd never replace the other boy in Iruka's heart, not that he'd really wanted to, caring made you weak.

"Naruto isn't around, we haven't seen him in nearly a week. He probably went off on one of his dumb training sessions." He looked over at Iruka and seeing the pain in his eyes added icily. "I'll bring him here as soon as he gets back."


	8. Chapter 8

Pakkun watched while Kakashi slept. But not for long enough, he woke still tired, but encouraged by the thought that he could go home now. Pukkun attracted his attention with a gentle whine. Two men had left the gate and were running straight towards him. As they passed he recognised the chakra. They were the messengers that he had followed the day before. Could they lead him to Orochimaru?

He remembered what they had said. 'Some other poor fool to run it over.' It seemed they were out of luck and had been sent out again anyway. He scribbled a note and attached it to Pakkun's collar.

"Make sure this gets back to the Hokage." The dog gave him a concerned look but took off running, without a snide comment for once.

Kakashi sped after the messengers, concealed with total stealth.

He lost them a day later in the forest. _The forest. _ Konoha nins did not get lost in forests. Particularly not ones as familiar as this seemed to be. He slowed to a walk, checking each tree as he passed. So many of them were tantalisingly well, familiar. It was disconcerting, confusing. He stopped and uncovered the sharigan to look around, taking note of the parts that seemed right and blocking the parts that did not.

Suddenly he knew where he was, the old salt mine. Why wasn't he surprised? It was a ginjutsu and he had walked right into the middle of it. He would have noticed a total deception at once of course. But this was subtle, little pockets of falsehood slipped in with reality, fooling him for long enough to lead him right where they wanted him.

He couldn't resist a smile, it was exactly the kind of thing he'd do himself. Then he froze completely in the power of killing intent from the most cold blooded killer Konoha had ever produced."

"What do you want from me Orochimaru-san?"

The white mask-like face looked him over. "From you nothing, there are only three things I want: Unlimited power, immortality and to see Konoha and everyone in it burned to the ground. And you aren't the one who gave give me those." He pulled at a tuft of silver hair. "So you're Sakumo's brat. You look like him. Almost as if he had found a way to come back from the dead. If he had he might finally have been worth listening to."

The copy nin bristled despite himself. "Some would say that the values we pass on to our children are the only immortality worth having."

Orochimaru laughed. The hollow laugh of someone who had never been happy.

"Yes, those that are never likely to have any other choice. But I see that you have something your father didn't."

He ripped off the Konoha headband and threw it onto the ground, then called out as if commanding a dog. "Kabuto come here!"

A moment later a young man was beside him. He was slight and light haired, wearing glasses. But with a menacing presence that gave the lie to his boyish, even effeminate appearance. Kakashi recognised him at once.

"Search him but don't kill him… yet. I don't won't to do anymore damage to that eye."

Kabuto gestured to a nearby tree. A strange, almost inhuman, creature with far too many arms clambered down and bound the copy nin in silvery threads. He then dragged him along the forest floor to a cave that Kakashi now recognised as the old mine entrance.

Inside the spider-like nin released his threads and withdrew. Kabuto pulled him to his feet and started to circle like a shark.

Using his uncovered sharigan kakashi looked around in the near dark. The cavern was outfitted somewhere between a medical museum and a laboratory. There were bottles of body parts, floating in various liquids, all around. Mostly heads and hands, but there didn't seem to be any part of the human anatomy that wasn't represented. There were strange medical instruments too, or were they bizarre weapons? Maybe both.

Kabuto took out a needle and stabbed it into Kakashi's neck, the poison spread at once, freezing him more effectively than Orochimaru's jutsu. Kakashi fought back wave after wave of nausea, he had to keep his focus. His timing had to be perfect, he must not let the Sound ninja find the scrolls.

The young man brought his face to within an inch of Kakashi's throat and inhaled deeply. Then ran the fingers of both hands in opposite directions under his collar. "So you're the lucky bastard who's been fucking Iruka-sensei.

He opened the scroll pouches on his jacket, taking out jutsu scrolls and tossing them on the floor at their feet. "He had your smell all over him, even though he was still wet from his shower. You must have really ground it in. I used to watch him sometimes, when I was in Konoha. It was obvious someone was having him, but I'd never have guessed that he'd go for a pervert like you."

He felt into each inside pocket in turn, taking out weapons and needles and throwing them down with the scrolls. Allowing his hands to slide over the well-defined muscles of the copy nins torso as he moved from one to the next. "I bet he's sweet, that tight little arse and those nimble fingers. Though maybe not so nimble now, eh?"

He started to check the outer pockets, starting at the top and working his way down. "Did you ever make him cry? I tried to, but the man was stubborn. I kept cutting and cutting… Oh I really wanted to see tears in those pretty eyes."

His hand was hovering over the pocket that contained the scrolls. He leered into kakashi's face, looking for a reaction.

"You almost killed him." Kakashi made eye contact and activated the sharigan for a fraction of a second, before letting his genuine fury show. With any luck the kid wouldn't be able to distinguish the intensity of one from the other.

Kabuto's hand passed over without noticing the scrolls inside and moved down to his waist. "Yeah, I heard, guess I got carried away. Good thing you were there, he's no use to Orochimaru-sama dead, but I needed him softened up a bit so that I could use the eye." Kakashi stiffened as he felt himself groped roughly. "Memory modification is very tricky, difficult to know exactly what to seal, and it's all so much more exposed when someone thinks they're about to die. You know, the 'whole life flashes in front of your eyes' thing"

Well that explained a lot, good thing the kid was in a show-off mood. Iruka always did have a way of opening people up.

"Whose eye did you use? Itachi's?"

Kabuto laughed, it wasn't as sinister as his mentor's but not a happy laugh either.

"That's a joke, our old friend from the Akatsuki coming to help us out. No Orochimaru-sama found it in a corpse. The poor fucker had fallen into one of the shafts and been preserved in the salt. But it's been dead for hundreds of years, the chakra use to activate it would be deadly. Although the snakes can handle it, for a while."

So that's how he had done it, snakes and graves. Snakes had hypnotic eyes anyway, they would be natural sharigan users. And he'd heard that Orochimaru always did have a way with snakes.

Now all he needed to know was why.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto didn't know how long he'd been in the woods. The crushed nest of leaves and yellowed grass where he'd been sleeping told him that it was at least a few days, maybe much longer. His stomach was empty but he wasn't hungry. Instead he felt hot inside, as if he was filled with fire. It was strangely pleasant.

He had no idea why he was out there in the first place, perhaps he had passed out while training, it wouldn't be the first time. If he had been with Sasuke and the bastard had just left him then the arrogant prick would pay. They may be rivals but you still took care of your teammates.

His clothes were dirty and stiff as if they had got wet and then dried on his body. He should go home and take a bath. Then he would go and see Iruka-sensei, he was on a mission to make his teacher like him again and he didn't want him to think that he was ignoring him. With a big grin on his face he started back towards home.

The stares of the people he passed seemed more hostile than usual. An old man with a donkey, that he saw coming towards him on the road, led the animal way out into a rice paddy until he had passed. He was just being paranoid, lots of people hated him, they always had. He directed his eyes straight ahead. There were people that liked him too, Sasuke and Sakura. And of course Iruka-sensei. The teacher did still love him didn't he? Despite what he'd heard him say? He felt as if a cold hand had just clutched at his heart, he couldn't afford to think about that right now.

The marketplace was its usual bustle of activity. Naruto was relieved, he was less noticeable in a crowd. Sakura was buying vegetables for her mother when she noticed the familiar blond hair. Her feelings were torn between relief at seeing him and fury that he had scared them by disappearing for so long.

Suddenly an old woman hobbled out in front of her. Sakura was shocked, she had obviously been savagely beaten. One of the woman's eyes was swollen shut, there was a clot of dried blood matting her white hair and from the way her left arm was hanging it was clear that her shoulder was dislocated.

Sakura took her hand. "Old Grandmother, you're hurt. Let me get you to a healer."

The old woman stood unsteadily for a moment, eyes twitching horribly. She looked a Sakura blankly, as if the girl was speaking a strange language. Then she became frantic with fear, she pointed to Naruto and screamed. "It's the nine tails, the kyuubi. It's come here to kill us all."

A sickening hush fell over the whole market. Naruto stood still, blinking uncomprehendingly. A small boy wandered over to him, smiling. Then another woman screamed too, a younger woman.

She ran towards him and snatched the boy into her arms. "My baby, don't you hurt him you monster."

A murmur rose from the crowd. "The kyuubi boy is attacking women and children, kill him."

A large farmer pushed his way to the front, wielding a heavy stick. Naruto watched as the stick swung towards his head, couldn't believe he was really going to hit him. Suddenly Sakura's foot connected with the man's chest, sending him sprawling.

"Naruto, what's going on?" She asked as she landed beside him.

The boy threw his arms around her, convulsed in tears.

"The girl, he's got that young girl!" Someone shrieked. Then Sakura was knocked to the ground by the press of people as Naruto ran, the mob screaming at his heels.

Iruka and Sasuke were drinking tea when they heard the sudden uproar. They both froze, ears straining for clues, was the village being attacked? Suddenly they heard a single word above the din.

"Kyuubi!"

"Naruto!" Iruka yelled, leaping to his feet and dropping his teacup. Sasuke had him by the arm before he could reach the door.

"I'll go, you might get hurt again. You aren't well enough to fight."

With a grim nod of acknowledgement he stood aside and let the boy pass, then watched from his window as he disappeared across the rooftops towards the marketplace.

Naruto was easy to find. Sasuke just had to follow the most frenzied and loudest part of the mob. The fox boy was cowering, backed up against a wall, filthy and bleeding. His clothes were torn and there were leaves sticking to his hair. The crowd pelted him with rocks, sticks, vegetables, anything they could find.

With a graceful leap Sasuke landed in front of him, a kunai in his hand and eyes whirling.

"Back off!" He screamed. "If you hurt him I'll hurt you, all of you!"

The mob became very quiet. Konoha people knew those eyes, Uchiha eyes. It was one boy against a hundred of them but they didn't like the odds. An old man at the front of the crowd threw the stick he was holding at Sasuke's feet. He glared at the two boys, eyes glassy with fear.

"Ok kid, you can keep your demon. But get him out of our village or we'll come back for both of you."

Then he turned around, muttering and shaking with fury. The rest of the villagers dropped their weapons and stepped back, slowly dispersing to leave the three gennins alone in the marketplace.

Naruto sank to his knees then sat on the ground exhausted. He scrubbed at the tear tracks on his face with the back of his sleeve. Sasuke may have saved him but that was no excuse to look weak in front of his rival.

Sasuke crouched beside the fox boy and put an arm around his shoulder. If it had been anyone else the gesture would have seemed kind and reassuring, but the Uchiha looked more like a wild animal guarding its meal.

Naruto looked up at him. He had his hands on his stomach trying to control the strange chakra that was threatening to tear him apart.

"Why did they do that?"

He grabbed his headband, pulling it off, staring at it and polishing the leaf insignia with his fingers.

"I'm one of their own ninja's, I risk my life for these people. I really care about them, I do!"

Sasuke's chest hurt with the mess of conflicting emotions inside him. He took the headband.

"It's stupid to care, love people. It just gives them power over you, makes you pathetic."

Naruto felt dead inside. He reached for some kind of anchor.

"But don't we all need precious people to care about, to fight for, or why would we do it?"

The Uchiha spat back his answer. "I don't. I don't need anyone, caring just makes you weak. Look at Kakashi-sensei fawning over his beloved Iruka. He's a genius, he can do anything. It makes me sick seeing the way that weakling drags him down."

Sakura staggered to the scene just in time to see Naruto pulling himself to his feet, screaming at the dark-haired boy.

"IRUKA-SENSEI IS NOT A WEAKLING! He risked his life for me! It's a million times braver to do that when you think you really might die than when you're strong enough to know that you won't. You're just jealous because Iruka-sensei likes Kakashi-sensei and me better than he does you."

Sasuke's blow connected hard with Naruto's jaw, sending him flying backwards across the street. Naruto crashed into the wall of the building on the other side, cracking it. As he pulled himself to his feet, slightly dazed, his eyes widened. Their colour changed to deep amber and his pupils narrowed to red slits while chackra poured out of his body taking on the shape of an animal with tails. Nine tails. The sound that came from his lips wasn't that of a boy, it was the deep growl of a demon animal.

He took off and ran towards the gate, it was open. A man was waiting for him there. There was a snake coiled around his neck like a collar, holding the guard paralysed in the stare of its one red baleful eye. The snake became limp and he took it from his neck and plucked out the eye, storing it in a little stone jar that he took from his pocket. He threw the dead snake aside and stepped into the shadows as Naruto ran past him.

Sasuke reached the gate a few minutes later. "Open it!" He yelled at the guard.

"But I have orders, I mustn't…"

"Open it!" He yelled again, and for the second time the man was caught up in the swirl of red sharigans. He opened the gate without another word and without seeing the second Konoha ninja run through it either.


	9. Chapter 9

Sakura was left alone in the marketplace, completely alone. Konaha was like a ghost town. Who could she turn to? She was frightened, and her boys were fighting. There was only one person and she was racing towards Iruka's apartment before the thought had reached her conscious mind. At his building she ran up the steps and straight into a trap.

Iruka was pacing anxiously waiting for Sasuke to return when he heard the trap sprung. He nudged open the door and peered out cautiously, to come face to face with Sakura. Tearstained, sobbing with equal parts fear, grief and humiliation, and upside down.

"Oh! Sakura! Kakashi's trap!" He looked at his hands helplessly. "Let me find someone to get you down."

"Noooo!" Sakura screamed, swallowing her injured pride. "Sasuke and Naruto, they're fighting. Not like usual but really fighting. I… I'm afraid they might kill each other."

Iruka's eyes went wide. He ran to kick on his sandals then ran back to the doorway. He paused next to Sakura and looked at her apologetically.

"Just go, they were headed towards the gate." She whispered, scrunching her eyes closed. "Someone is bound to find me before long."

With a long glance back he headed out to the gate. The guard on duty recognised him and waved him through. The man seemed rather dazed. Iruka hoped that he hadn't been drinking but he had no time to worry about that now. Naruto was easy to track, even for Naruto. The ruckus from the marketplace sounded as if the town had turned against him. Had Sasuke too, and if so why? Iruka knew why.

That dark unspeakable fear was followed by another desperate thought. Had Naruto been injured and was that the reason why he was crashing through the woods so clumsily? He quickened his pace, pushing himself to his limit.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi stretched his toes inside his sandals and curled the fingers of the hand that wasn't visible to the Sound nin. The poison was wearing off. Had Kabuto made a mistake or was it a deliberate ploy to let him escape? He couldn't afford to make any assumptions. He would play it both ways and see how it turned out. In either case he had to keep the youth talking as long as possible.

"Kabuto-san, why are you working so hard at infuriating me? To see if you can? Is this a new interrogation technique that you decided to try on 'the cool Sharigan Kakashi' while you had the chance."

The way the smaller man's eyes closed to slits told him that he had hit close to the mark.

"If you want information from me, let's make a deal, I'll answer two of your questions and you will answer two of mine. You can go first."

Kabuto pulled down the other's mask and took a step back. He looked at the copy nin with calm detachment. So the uncouth harassment _had_ been an act, or at least he'd disguised it as one. Did this kid even _have_ a true nature? He saw him take out another needle. Not a mistake then. The young man turned his back to him. Slowly and deliberately.

"What do they know about the Akatsuki, in Konoha?"

Well that was unexpected. "Not very much. Of course they want Itachi, he has… crimes to answer for. But if they know more then no one has shared it with me."

Kakashi wished he could see the other's reaction, but the fact that he had chosen to hide it was probably more revealing than anything he would have been able to actually read on his face. Now it was his turn for a question, he'd start with something straightforward, then maybe he could catch the former spy off guard.

"Why didn't the Inuzaka and their dogs find anything here? There's too much around for you to have hidden it all from them."

Kabuto turned to face him, the corners of his lips twitching in satisfaction.

"Was it that they didn't find anything, or that they just don't _remember_ finding anything?"

Kakashi had already guessed as much, but he gasped and looked shocked at the simple cleverness of the deception.

Kabuto stepped close so that the other could feel his warm breath on his cheek.

"My second question." He smirked and ran his hand up the inside of Kakashi's thigh then grabbed his crotch, squeezing hard. "Did I rattle you at all?" His voice had the same rough tone he'd used earlier. "Just a little? Even for a moment?"

The Leaf nin allowed himself a smirk in return. "Not really."

Kabuto tightened his ninja grip, making Obito's eye water. Kakashi hoped he hadn't caused any permanent damage. He needed those parts. The younger man narrowed his eyes in what just might have been a flash of real emotion. "But it was true about the tears, I really did want to see him cry."

Kakashi's flash of anger was genuine too. "My last question." He said hoarsely, and waited to be released before continuing. "Why did Orochimaru choose this place as a hideout. There are better caves, better hidden and not so close to the village."

The Sound nin's voice wasn't quite as void of emotion as Kakashi expected. "He came here because it was the kyuubi's lair."

Kakashi fixed the sharigan on him and froze him with Orochimaru's killing intent. Then he took the needle from his hand and stabbed it into his neck. Between that and the jutsu he should be out of commission for a while. He tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied it over the sharigan, leaving it uncovered had already depleted his chakra severely. Then using stealth he slipped out of the mine entrance to the forest clearing.

The kyuubi's lair. Orochimaru had three ambitions: immortality, unlimited power and to see Konoha burned to the ground. Now it all made sense.

Kakashi felt the two scrolls in his pocket, he knew which one he had to use. It was one of the most forbidden of jutsus. When activated it would open a pathway to the next world and he would be able to lash tendrils of chakra onto his enemy and drag him there with him. Not send but take. It was a death jutsu and the cost of using it was the users own life.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto headed south. There was a place there where he could stay, a place where he would be safe. He was frightened and angry, but mostly just hurt. Pain flickered thorough his aura like a red flame. Sakura had abandoned him, Sasuke had hit him and Iruka-sensei… Iruka hated him. The whole world hated him. So he was going home.

He'd slept in that place, deep underground in his fox's den, since the world was new. Emerging from time to time. Erupting onto the surface like a force of nature, to feed, to roam for a while and then to return. But greedy men digging in the earth for salt had disturbed his thousand-year sleep and he had fled his home in confusion. So he'd raged over the planet bent on destruction for centuries. Then, when he had finally made his way back, he had found a village beside his lair. A village full of human vermin, keeping him from his sleep with their noise and their stench, and their feeble human thoughts and their petty human feelings.

He remembered descending on the village, full of fire and fury. But after that his memories were vague and jumbled. Glimpses of village streets, children playing and laughing, but not with him, and adults with cold scorn and hate in their eyes. There was sadness and loneliness, an ache for acceptance and acknowledgement. Human emotions not demon ones. Then something else. Deep quiet sleep, as soft and dark as black velvet, wrapped in friendship and love. Sweeter and more restful by far than his sleep in the bowels of the earth had ever been.

But that was gone. Over. And he was headed south.

It didn't take Sasuke long to catch up with him. The fox boy was moving slowly for a ninja, ignoring the well-worn paths and creating his own. Crashing through the woods like a young giant, not yet used to the feel and power of its body. He stopped and turned to look at the dark haired boy, who was shouting at him and pounding him with waves of painful emotions.

"Naruto stop! I shouldn't have hit you, I'm sorry. I just felt so…" His voice became louder. "DAMMIT! I DON'T KNOW WHAT I FELT I NEVER DO! I just wanted to hit you so I did!" His shout changed to a plea. "But I'm sorry, it's my fault, so please come back."

Naruto wanted him to go away. He noticed that the boy's face was wet, so was his, which was strange because it wasn't raining. The boy came closer blasting him with intent, but he couldn't read it. It was too powerful, too confused and too full of hurt.

"Damn you Naruto, I'm taking you back even if I have to knock you out and drag you every inch of the way!"

Then Sasuke was flying towards him. He hit him full power in the centre of his chest, throwing him back into a tree, which cracked and bent behind him. He stood up again, too focused on his own purpose to care, and took a step to the south. Now Sasuke was standing in front of him, blocking his way, eyes whirling red. The only emotion Naruto could feel in the Uchiha's chakra now was livid determination.

Naruto lashed out towards him with killing force, but he dodged away easily. Sasuke kicked him on the side of the head sending him flying. He stood up and threw himself at his rival, but missed again. Sasuke used his sharigan eyes to avoid every attack, while landing blow after blow of his own. But armed with the kyuubi's chakra Naruto was indestructible, unstoppable. In desperation Sasuke gathered the energy for the chidori in his hands. Surely this couldn't fail? He fired it point blank at the boy only a few feet away. Naruto shot backwards like a ball from a cannon, collapsing the trees in his path like dominoes. That hurt!

The kyuubi reared inside him, gathered its strength and blasted the whole area. A wave of power leveled the trees for hundreds of feet. Sasuke was thrown like a rag to the edge of the destroyed area and lay crumpled next to a splintered log. Then the kyuubi turned Naruto's feet back to the south and continued on its way.

Sasuke was slowly coming to his senses when Iruka found him. He was bruised and cut but, remarkably, the sharigan had given him time to harden his body with chakra and avoid any real injury.

The teacher crouched next to him, patting his cheek with the back of his hand. "Sasuke! What happened? Are you hurt?"

"Iruka-sensei?" He asked as his eyes came into focus. "Naruto… the kyuubi… tried to stop him."

"Can you stand? I don't think I can carry you."

"No, tired. The sharigans, I'd only slow you down. Please try to stop him. Bring him back."

Iruka had never seen that kind of need in the Uchiha's eyes before. He hugged him tight and Sasuke responded by hugging his former teacher in a way he hadn't embraced anyone since he was a little boy. Since before his parents had been killed.

Reluctantly the teacher left the boy and continued hurrying on his way. "Stay here and rest, I'll come back for you." He promised.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi henged into the form of Kabuto and stepped into the open. Orochimaru was fifty feet away preparing a large circle of salt and rock crystals on the ground, but what caught the copy nin's attention was the evil aura descending on the whole valley. He looked for it's source and saw someone, a human shape, staggering out of the trees. A mess of dirty blond hair and dirtier orange clothes.

Naruto.

He couldn't detect any of the boy's own chakra at all, it was completely overwhelmed by the fierce intensity of the kyuubi's. The boy moved like a puppet pulled along by strings, towards the mine entrance and towards Orochimaru. As he crossed the perimeter of the circle he collapsed. Instantly the nine tails' chakra, which had flared around his body like an animal shaped flame, increased to twenty times its former size. At the same time it took on a different quality, as if it was transforming from pure spirit to something more solid. To the incarnate flesh of the demon.

Kakashi tore his eyes away. He needed to position himself close enough to do what he needed to do, yet far enough away from Orochimaru to prevent him from seeing through his disguise too easily. Although right now that didn't seem to be too much of a problem. The sennin was using every ounce of his own considerable power just to contain the demon.

Scanning his surroundings Kakashi saw something completely unexpected. A familiar figure with a familiar dark ponytail, running towards him, out of the forest on the far side of the clearing.

He landed with breathtaking grace by his side and pulled down his mask.

"Iruka what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the hospital!"

The dark haired man stared at him. He would have been bewildered if he hadn't already been way beyond that point.

"I… I followed Naruto, Sakura told me that he was fighting with Sasuke. But they aren't are they?"

Iruka had never seen the other man look more serious. He was grateful at his honesty in not forcing a cheerful facade.

"No, the kyuubi is loose. I have a jutsu to use against it, it should work. As soon as I strike you must grab Naruto and get him away from here, maybe we can still save him."

The teacher nodded his understanding, then pulled the other man towards him. "Kakashi, the seal broke, I can remember, everything. You, Naruto, everything." He brushed his lips against his lover's. "I can remember… us."

Kakashi hugged Iruka harder than expected, but not hard enough to give himself away.

"I'm so glad Iruka, otherwise you would have been tormented by not knowing for the rest of your life." He drew himself away reluctantly. "There's not much time, I have to go."

Both eyes were dry as he turned back towards the demon, and a single word escaped from under his breath.

It was "goodbye."


	10. Chapter 10

Kakashi heard Orochimaru calling for him, or rather calling for Kabuto, and quickened his pace. There was an excited whine in the sennin's usually monotone voice. Hengeing back to the Sound nin, he made his way over to the demon. Orochimaru was almost in its mouth, chanting and making hand seals.

Kakashi gripped the scroll in one pocket and a kunai in another. He needed to wait until Orochimaru and the kyuubi were almost joined. Once he activated the jutsu he would only have a few moments to grab them both with his chakra and drag them with him into hell.

He looked over at Naruto, who was lying on the ground writhing as if in agony, even though his eyes were rolled up as if he was out cold. But at least he wasn't dead. The kyuubi was streaming out of him, filling the area with its blood red demonic aura. Almost at its full size but still attached to its anchor at the boy's navel.

Iruka ran over to him and knelt beside the unconscious boy. He knew he had to move him as soon as the kyuubi was completely separated or he would certainly be its first victim. Iruka shook the boy's shoulders, wincing at the agony that shot through his hands at the contact. But Naruto did not respond. It was probably just as well that he had no idea what was happening to him.

They were bleeding, his hands, staining patches of red through the dirty bandages. Somehow he had to carry, or at least drag the boy away. Surely he had enough strength for that! He tried to grip him with his forearms and elbows, to spare his hands enough pain to make it possible. But it was difficult and with the cast between his left elbow and wrist he couldn't find a place that he could hold onto securely.

He had Naruto propped in a sitting position, and was holding him around the waist from behind, when Kakashi activated the scroll.

The copy nin had closed the gap between himself and Orochimaru and was less than a dozen feet away when the Sound leader's chakra started to flow out of his body. It started as a whisp of blue, like cigarette smoke, streaming out of his mouth. In less than a minute he was enveloped in a dense cloud, which started to twist and roll, stretching and shaping, becoming a glowing phantasm… a giant snake. It was more than chakra. This was the sennin's soul.

The spirit serpent climbed up the demon's massive foreleg and reared over its shoulder ready to plant its fangs in the monster's neck. And to take over its body. Kakashi took his hands out of his pockets, sliced the tip of his thumb on the kunai and planted it on the scroll.

Space fell away behind him, leaving him with the feeling that he was falling or maybe floating, he couldn't tell. Two worlds swirled like vertigo, one in front and one behind, leaving him poised between existence and extinction, life and death. But so light-headed that for all his genius he could barely think. Struggling to make the necessary seals, his saw his target became visible. Two entwined monsters, frozen in time and space by the power of the jutsu. He felt as if they were just a little ahead of him, somewhere in an endless bright tunnel. All he had to do was fold his chakra around them and take one step back.

Suddenly golden chakra was erupting around the red. It covered it, wrapped it, and was forcing it to collapse into itself. Kakashi could feel the source of the golden light behind him, pouring past him into the tunnel. But for some reason he could not, or dare not, turn around.

The demonic feel in the air dissipated as the kyuubi was pushed back into the seal under Iruka's hand. Kakashi found himself on his knees with the bloodied scroll by his side as the gold and red both vanished together. Leaving him with the echo of a familiar loss and sadness that he thought he had put behind him years ago.

Orochimaru was the first to come to his senses. Shocked and disappointed to find that he was still undoubtedly human. The kyuubi had gone and the seal was repaired, it was out of his reach now. Had Sakumo's brat done that? If so he had badly underestimated him. Pity. In that case he shouldn't risk trying to take his eye, and the one he had found was almost useless now. Those Uchiha eyes were such useful tools. But there were other ways to get them. He would just have to wait.

If he had stayed a few moments more before jutsuing away, he would not have had to wait for very long. As soon as he was gone Sasuke came stumbling out of the trees.

"Iruka-sensei, you sealed the nine tails." The breathless boy whispered, shocked and impressed that a chuunin could do such a thing.

Iruka blinked, equally shocked. "But I couldn't have, there's no way I could do that kind of jutsu, even if I knew how. "

By now Kakashi had staggered over to them. He slumped onto the grass as if every bone in his body was broken. Looking every inch a man who had just cheated death.

He spoke very quietly, almost reverently. "No, it wasn't Iruka-sensei. It was The Fourth, I could feel him. He must have reached through from the opening to the next world while the pathway was open."

The copy nin looked at Iruka, his Iruka, with a strange mix of awe and satisfaction. "But you were part of it."

Taking the teacher's hand, oh so gently in his own, he lifted it to reveal the crimson print it had left on Naruto's belly. "Yondaime used your blood and your love for Naruto to repair the seal."

Iruka gasped and looked at the bloody mess of bandages on his hands. "You mean it's over? Naruto's safe, the village is safe now?"

Kakashi put an arm around him and pulled him close, almost onto his lap. "As long as you are. Now let's go home."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They met up with the ANBU squad that had been sent after Iruka just outside the village. Kakashi explained everything to them as briefly as he could. Two ANBU escorted them while the other two continued to the mine. Kakashi left Iruka with Naruto at the hospital, and after a very brief detour, went from there to the Hokage's office.

Tsunade opened the door to him herself, smiling. He decided that it didn't suit her. Her desk was pilled with mission reports, medical files, pens, pencils and an empty teacup. She watched him appraise the disorder then sat in her chair and put her feet up on it too.

"So Hatake, you _almost _disobeyed me when you went after Orochimaru. But for all that you did well."

Faint praise was at least an improvement over outright scorn. "Thank you Hokage-sama, I did my best."

She tossed her hair back casually. "Iruka sensei too. You worked well as a team, perhaps I should send you on missions together more often."

Kakashi stiffened. "I'd like that where it is appropriate, but there is no place for a chuunin on most of the missions I'm asked to do."

Tsunade laughed coarsely. "Protective of your little teacher aren't you? So what can you tell me about Orochimaru now?"

"Nothing. He left before I had sufficiently recovered."

"And Naruto?"

"I believe the kyuubi is sealed as well as it has been for the past thirteen years."

She took her feet down and leaned towards him, reaching out a hand. "The scrolls."

Her expression changed as he put them in her palm, becoming unreadable. She examined the brown bloodstain on one of them. "Hatake, you realise that if you should ever need to use this again you would be the only person in the history of the world to use it twice."

For some reason his heart was beating very fast. He nodded his reply.

"Well I'm sure you are anxious to get back to the hospital. I believe Umino Iruka is waiting for you there."

He bowed and left hurriedly. Relieved as always when dealing with Tsunade, that he had no need or desire for a wife.

Ibiki was waiting outside the door. He walked with him, matching his pace.

"So Itachi wasn't involved after all. Damn shame, I thought we might finally have a lead on him."

Kakashi stopped and turned towards him, allowing the half-formed thoughts he'd provoked to bubble to the front of his brain. "I think we will, before too much longer." He snorted quietly and shook his head. "It's this damned eye, sees shadows of things that aren't even there. And you'll need to watch out for that Kabuto kid too, he had a few underneaths I couldn't get to."

Ibiki slapped his shoulder amiably then started to walk away. Kakashi called after him.

"Ibiki! Thanks."

The big man turned back to look at him, a question in his dark eyes.

"For caring I mean. About everyone, about Iruka. It helped. When I thought I'd have to… It helped to know that there would be someone to care for him."

Ibiki pulled a face that was impossible to distinguish as either a grimace or a smile. "Yeah well, just don't let it get around. You'll ruin my reputation."

Kakashi watched him hurry away, pride and satisfaction apparent in the set of his shoulders, then rushed back towards the hospital.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Iruka sat by Naruto's bedside. The boy had woken briefly, demanded ramen, and was now in a deep but normal sleep. The Hokage had sent word that she would check him herself later that day. His mind drifted and he remembered how he had been sitting like this with Kakashe six months before. The thought was swiftly followed by the nightmare of not remembering. He shook his head. That was in the past, the seal had been broken. It wouldn't happen again.

But then there were some things that were best forgotten. He turned as he sensed an unwelcome presence and saw Ochiro Akira standing in the doorway.

The doctor took a step forward. "Iruka-san, Hatake-san came to er… visit me in my office. It seems he picked up on my interest in you." He grinned nervously. "Frankly he had come to warn me off. I wanted to thank for not telling him how strongly I came on to you that time. You see I didn't understand."

Despite his automatic anxiety, Iruka was almost tempted to smile. "Akira-san I tried to explain that Hatake-san and I have a close, that is an exclusive relationship."

Ochiro Akira grinned, wolfishly this time. To be perfectly honest I don't think that would stop me from trying. What I didn't understand is how possessive Hakate-san is. He's a very dangerous man, I probably owe you my life."

With a sheepish smirk the doctor bowed and left. Iruka heard a small arrk from the corridor, then Kakashi walked into the room.

"What the hell did he want?" The copy nin demanded irritably.

Iruka stood and draped his arms over the his lover's shoulders, letting his freshly bandaged hands hang free, at least the cast had finally been removed. "He just came to let me know that he's lost all interest in me suddenly. Perhaps I'm not as attractive as he first thought." He eased down the mask with his teeth and pouted temptingly.

Kakashi pressed his lips against the others that were so teasingly close. "Good."

He looked over to the boy lying on the bed. "Are you going to stay here?"

"No. He won't wake up for a while, I'd rather be with you." The look in the teacher's dark eyes made it clear exactly why he was anxious, no desperate, to be with him.

"Good." The copy nin said again. "You're strong enough now, come on I'm going to teach you to fly again."

He led the teacher outside, then supporting him under his good arm, helped him to leap up onto the hospital roof.

Iruka laughed. "You're over estimating me. I doubt if I could have made that jump before I was hurt."

Kakashi just shrugged. "That's why I'm teaching you."

He helped him to leap from rooftop to rooftop to an area of neat tidy homes about a mile from the academy. Giving the other man just enough extra strength to keep up but no more. They stopped on the roof of a cosy one level house. Kakashi sat and stretched out. Iruka collapsed beside him, panting less than he would have expected.

"You see, you did much better than you thought you would. In a few more days you won't even need my help."

He tried to ignore the way the younger man was pressing his body against his. "By the way, what do you think of this house?"

Iruka _really_ did not want to talk about houses right now. "It's sort of difficult to tell from up here but it seems like a nice house."

Kakashi took his arm and jumped down, landing as softly as an autumn leaf. "Yes it is." He took a key from his pocket and opened the door. "Would you like it?"

"Iruka laughed, his eyes shining. What was the man up to? Kakashi was confusing him, but then he often confused him. "Of course I would like it, but I couldn't possibly afford to buy a house like this."

The silver haired nin slipped down his mask, he looked ridiculously pleased. "Good then it's settled. You may not be able to afford it but I can. I inherited some money, I've just never had anything I wanted to spend it on before."

Iruka was horrified. "What are you saying? You want to buy me this house?"

Kakashi pulled the teacher towards him and mashed their lips together in a long hard kiss, as if he was trying to kiss some sense into him. "No, I don't want to buy it for you, I want to buy it for us. To live in together, as a couple. Wouldn't you like that?"

Like it? It was beyond all comprehension. "It… it's… Kakashi! But why? Why now? You've always been so careful, so secretive. Why do you want to live with me openly now, let everyone know?"

The copy nin had never been happier. "Part of being a genius is knowing when you've been a fool and having the sense to do something about it. I thought I was keeping you safe by keeping us, our love, secret. Well I was dead wrong. I do have something of a reputation you know, and it can't hurt for anyone who wants to target you to know that they'll have to deal with me too."

Iruka looked at him wide eyed and bewildered. God he looked so cute like that. "But why would anyone target me? I still don't understand."

His partner, he could call himself that now, kissed him again. Gently this time, barely allowing their lips to brush together. He sighed loudly. "What was it you called me in the hospital? A pompous arrogant bastard?"

Iruka's eyes went wider still. How was that even possible? "But I didn't mean… I was upset… "

Kakashi silenced him with a look. "Yes you did and you were exactly right. I thought you were attacked because of me, to get at me, which it certainly did by the way. But I was wrong, it wasn't about me, it had nothing to do with me at all. You were the only target all along."

Iruka still looked at him blankly.

"Look everyone old enough to remember knows that the biggest threat to the village, to the whole country, is the kyuubi. As long as Naruto is secure and happy the seal is strong, but if it weakens the kyuubi could get free, it nearly did. You my dear Iruka are the one who makes Naruto feel secure and happy. By caring for him and loving him you and you alone keep the seal strong and the kyuubi imprisoned."

Iruka still didn't look convinced.

"Naruto is the kyuubi's prison but you are the key to that prison. That makes _you _the most dangerous man in Konoha. And as a Konoha shinobi it is my sworn duty to protect my village even if that means staying as close to you as I possibly can, every available hour of the day and, of course, the night."

A wide grin spread across the teacher's face. He stepped close to the other man, very close, every cell tingling in the power of his aura, and snaked his arms behind his back and up to his shoulders.

"I do love Naruto, and I love you. We don't know how much time we'll have together, of course no one does, but you know what I mean. And no matter how long it is I know that it won't be long enough. If being the kyuubi's key means I can spend more of the time we have like this, I don't care how many enemies are after me."

Kakashi relaxed in Iruka's arms, letting the younger man be the assertive one for once. "Yeah, me too. Except the part about you having enemies. I don't like that part at all."

Now Iruka was getting somewhere. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're an impossible romantic."

"Only you."

Iruka ground his hips into the other man's groin, feeling hardness against his own. "Want to do something about it?"

Kakashi's normally pale eye, already darkened with desire, hazed over with pure lust. I suppose we should try this place out, make sure it er… suits our purposes."

The brown eyes teased. "Which room do you think we should try?"

The copy nin's eye curved closed into a happy arc. "Mmm, there are a few. I think we should try them all, probably more than once, how else can we compare them properly."

Iruka found himself lying on his back on the wooden floor. He hadn't seen the elite jounin move, hadn't even felt himself touch the ground. He didn't care, the tongue that was expertly stroking the sides of his and tickling the sensitive ridges on the roof of his mouth just felt so right. It belonged in his mouth. There was only one thing he could do, use his own tongue to make an equal claim on the mouth pressed against his. He felt impossibly happy and overwhelmingly sad at the same time.

"I can't wait for my hands to heal, I hate not being able to touch you." He whispered as they finally parted to breathe.

Kakashi was staring at him with both eyes now. The blue one flashed wickedly. "I'll touch enough for both of us. But if it's making you feel guilty I can fix that."

Before he had time to process the words Iruka felt his hands tied together with chakra charged rope, high above his head. His surprised gasp melted into a smile. "So you're still more pervert than romantic after all."

Kakashi grinned back. "To the end. But you can you know, touch. My heart's in your hands right now." Obito's eye was crying again, but this time it was tears of joy.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So there it is. Iruka-kun's the most dangerous man in Konoha. How many of you guessed it?


End file.
